Agricultural Value Chain

This open access book provides a clear holistic conceptual framework of CISS-F (competitiveness, inclusiveness, sustainability, scalability and access to finance) to analyse the efficiency of value chains of high value agricultural commodities in India. It is based on the understanding that agriculture is an integrated system that connects farming with logistics, processing and marketing. Farmer’s welfare being central to any agricultural policy makes it very pertinent to study how a value chain works and can be strengthened further to realize this policy goal. This book adds value to the existing research by studying the value chains end-to-end across a wide spectrum of agricultural commodities with the holistic lens of CISS-F. It is not enough that a value chain is competitive but not inclusive or it is competitive and inclusive but not sustainable. The issue of scalability is very critical to achieve macro gains in terms of greater farmer outreach and sectoral growth. The research undertaken here brings out some very useful insights for policymaking in terms of what needs to be done better to steer the agricultural value chains towards being more competitive, inclusive, sustainable and scalable. The value chain specific research findings help draw very nuanced policy recommendations as well as present a big picture of the future direction of policy making in agriculture.

This book provides a thorough introduction to and examination of agricultural value chains in Sub-Saharan Africa. First, the authors introduce the economic theory of agri-food value chains and value chain governance, focusing on domestic and regional trade in (and consumption of) food crops in a low-income country context. In addition to mainstream and heterodox thinking about value chain development, the book pays attention to political economy considerations. The book also reviews the empirical evidence on value chain development and performance in Africa. It adopts multiple lenses to examine agricultural value chains, zooming out from the micro level (e.g., relational contracting in a context of market imperfections) to the meso level (e.g., distributional implications of various value chain interventions, inclusion of specific social groups) and the macro level (underlying income, population and urbanization trends, volumes and prices, etc.).Furthermore, this book places value chain development in the context of a process the authors refer to as structural transformation 2.0, which refers to a process where production factors (labor, land and capital) move from low-productivity agriculture to high-productivity agriculture. Finally, throughout the book the authors interpret the evidence in light of three important debates: (i) how competitive are rural factor and product markets, and what does this imply for distribution and innovation? (ii) what role do foreign investment and factor proportions play in the development of agri-food value chains in Africa? (iii) what complementary government policies can help facilitate a process of agricultural value chain transformation, towards high-productive activities and enhancing the capacity of value chains to generate employment opportunities and food security for a growing population.

`This is a "must read" for anyone interested in value chain finance.---Kenneth Shwedel, Agricultural Economist --Book Jacket.

This book is the first volume in a collection of contributions arising from a multidisciplinary project developed in the field of agri-food value chain analysis. The respective papers combine a range of disciplines to analyse major agri-food challenges in Europe and South America, offering readers a practical understanding of how risk and uncertainties can be managed by means of validated data and results from agri-food systems analysis. Experts from agronomy, information communication and technology, operations and supply chain management share their findings and propose novel approaches. Given its scope, the book will be of interest to a broad readership who want to learn about current agri-food challenges and requirements, and to professionals whose work involves real-life industry requirements, food and/or farming.

This book covers the agricultural value chain issues that occur in different parts of the world and aims to increase our understanding about the sustainable agricultural value chain paradigm. By reading through these chapters, the readers will witness various interesting, sometimes sad, commonalities among different regions of the world, where smallholder farmers and producers are severely affected by various agricultural policy deficiencies or mistakes and inexistences. The book consists of 14 chapters, which comprehensively cover over 20 agricultural products from more than 15 different regions of the world. Various qualitative and quantitative research methods are presented including surveys, case studies, interviews, price transmission, risk analysis, and multiagent system technology.

This major textbook provides comprehensive coverage of the analytical tools required to determine the dynamic response of structures. The topics covered include: formulation of the equations of motion for single- as well as multi-degree-of-freedom discrete systems using the principles of both vector mechanics and analytical mechanics; free vibration response; determination of frequencies and mode shapes; forced vibration response to harmonic and general forcing functions; dynamic analysis of continuous systems;and wave propagation analysis. The key assets of the book include comprehensive coverage of both the traditional and state-of-the-art numerical techniques of response analysis, such as the analysis by numerical integration of the equations of motion and analysis through frequency domain. The large number of illustrative examples and exercise problems are of great assistance in improving clarity and enhancing reader comprehension. The text aims to benefit students and engineers in the civil, mechanical and aerospace sectors.

This book explores the impact of industry 4.0 on agricultural supply chains, exploring how changes such as increased digitisation, automation, and the digital value chain, will impact food production globally. At a time when increasing population and environmental degradation puts stress on food supply chains, traditional farming operation models struggle to maintain both sustainability and transparency. Industry 4.0 could lead to digitalised ways of farming and agricultural production processes that will transform the traditional operating and process models to digital, data-intensive methods focusing on analytics and decision-making practices. This book aims to provider the reader with an understanding of the concept of Agriculture 4.0 in relation to supply chain management. Different applications of Agricultural 4.0 supply chains are discussed in relation to their respective advantages and disadvantages. Dr. Stella Despoudi is Lecturer in Operations and Supply Chan Management at Aston University and Adjunct Lecturer in Supply Chain Management at the University of Western Macedonia, Greece. Dr. Konstantina Spanaki is a Lecturer in Information Management at Loughborough University, UK. Dr. Oscar Rodríguez-Espíndola is a Senior lecturer in Operations and Supply Chain Management at Aston University and a member of the Aston CRISIS centre, UK. Dr. Efpraxia Zamani is a Senior Lecturer of Information Systems at the University of Sheffield, UK.

This paper goes beyond the “business” case for agricultural value chain development and presents an economy-wide framework to make the “development” case. We show that there are several key transmission channels that determine the economy-wide impacts of promoting various value chains, including forward and backward economic linkages, price responses, and net employment effects. These impacts all matter for household incomes, poverty, and dietary diversity. Results for Egypt show that agricultural value chain development generates economy-wide growth as well as growth in the agri-food system, but the impacts on employment suggest that agricultural growth can create new (and better) jobs in and beyond the agri-food system, but not necessarily more jobs. The results also show that productivity-driven agricultural growth in all crops is pro-poor and improves nutrition. However, potential adverse effects of livestock-led growth show that growth acceleration in single sectors can be negative, highlighting the importance of a systems analysis or, in our case, an economy-wide analysis. It is clear that no single sub-sector is best at achieving all the development outcomes examined. Moreover, the ranking of value chains by their development outcomes differs across sub-national regions. As such, results from this paper may provide useful decision support for the government and its development partners to select value chains depending on their priority development outcomes.