AGRICULTURE VALUE CHAIN ANALYSIS AND DEVELOPMENT

AGRICULTURE VALUE CHAIN ANALYSIS AND DEVELOPMENT

Agriculture is cited as the key driver of most economies in Africa. Coordination of the actors in the sector has remained a challenge, and overall contribution to the GDP is mixed. Sector productivity, coordination, competitiveness and value addition from farm to fork remains low. While governments have made tremendous efforts to boost production, coherent value chain analysis on basis of agricultural commodities where there are comparative advantages is lacking; a clear road map to improve capacities, systems, policies and add, appropriate and extract value is clearly absent. Exports from the sector are largely raw, supporting industries struggling. In which commodities are there clear comparative advantages in your country? Who are the key actors? What is the governance structure of the players in these respective value chains? How do commodities, information, knowledge, transactions, technologies, actors, processes, systems and policies interface to determine what happens in the chain, when and how this happens? What avenues exist for value addition, capture and appropriation? What are the practical steps for developing these value chains and improve sector competitiveness?