Innovative Policies And Institutions To Support Agro Industries Development

Agro-industries are an important source of employment and income generation worldwide, occupying a dominant position in the manufacturing sector of the economy and representing a significant demand driver for agricultural products. As part of its mandate to provide food security for the world s growing population, FAO promotes the development of agro-industries through its technical programs, including activities in the areas of policy advice, capacity building, advocacy, awareness raising and investment promotion. This book represents a contribution of FAO to broaden the understanding of approaches and mechanisms to foster the emergence and sustainability of agro-industries that are competitive and inclusive. With emphasis on experiences from the developing world, the book presents and discusses innovative policies and institutions that are supportive of agro-industries development."

In an effort to promote agro-enterprises and agro-industries as viable forms of inclusive development, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and The Cornell International Institute for Food, Agriculture and Development (CIIFAD) in collaboration with the International Association of Agricultural Economists (IAAE), organized an international symposium on the topic “Innovative Institutions, Public Policies, and Private Strategies for Inclusive Agro-Enterprise Development”, as part of the Triennial Meetings of the IAAE held in Foz do lguaçu, Brazil, in August 2012. This book contains the major papers presented at the symposium, which feature a wide range of country and regional experiences and examine the influence of markets and technology transfer to agro-enterprises on food security, poverty, and economic growth. The contributions also identify alternative market access strategies for sustainable economic development. This volume will enrich existing knowledge of agro-enterprises as a channel for promoting inclusive growth and reducing poverty levels across developing and emerging markets. Contents:PrefaceAbout the EditorsAbout the ContributorsAcknowledgementsIntroductionInstitutional Innovations Linking Small-Scale Farmers to Produce Markets in South Africa (Joyce M Chitja and Edward Mabaya)Innovative Business Models in the Thai Horticultural Sector: A Panel Data Analysis of the Impacts of GlobalGAP Certification (Sarah Holzapfel and Meike Wollni)Innovative Networks in Conservation Agriculture: Bajio Hub Case Study, Mexico (Gabriela Monsalvo-Velázquez, Ricardo Romero-Perezgrovas, Bram Govaerts and Roberto Rendón-Medel)Geography Matters: Evidence and Implications of Spatial Selection in Contract Farming Schemes in Southern India (Sudha Narayanan)Capabilities and Performance in Collective Marketing: The Importance of Learning to Cope with Agency Dillemas (Giel Ton, Lithzy Flores, Rubén Monasterios and Evaristo Yana)Social Innovation, Entrepreneurship and New Green Jobs: Successful Experiences in Mexico (Artemisa Montes Sylvan)Sweet Sorghum: A Smart Crop to Meet the Demands for Food, Fodder, Fuel and Feed (G Basavaraj, P Parthasarathy Rao, C Ravinder Reddy, A Ashok Kumar, S Datta Mazumdar, Y Ramana Reddy, P Srinivasa Rao, S M Karuppan Chetty and Belum V S Reddy)Promoting Food Processing Through Food Parks and Food Processing Special Economic Zones: The Indian Experience (Aradhna Aggarwal)Autonomy, Competence and Market Structure: Self-Determination Theory Applied to Small Agricultural Exporters from Latin America (Linda M Young and Theresa C Bushman)Promoting Agro-Enterprises in the Highlands of Ethiopia Through Improved Institutional Support Services: Experiences of Market-Oriented Dairy and Fattening Development (Berhanu Gebremedhin, Dirk Hoekstra and Azage Tegegne)The Role of Government in Ensuring a Level Playing Field: The Case of South Africa's Competition Commission and the Maize Milling Industry (Lulama Ndibongo Traub)The Quiet Revolution in Agri-Food Value Chains in Asia: Understanding the Fast Emergence of Cold Storages in Poor Districts in India (Bart Minten, Thomas Reardon, K M Singh and Rajib Sutradhar) Readership: Students of development studies, agribusiness practitioners, agricultural economists, food policymakers, and practitioners interested in finding out more about agribusiness and agri-industries across developing and emerging markets. Key Features:The book presents innovative institutional arrangements, novel analytical methods for analyzing them, and key policy prescriptions for bringing these innovations to scale in emerging/developing marketsIt offers, in a single volume, a unique set of cross-disciplinary research on agro-enterprise development conducted by practitioners and academics from around the worldKeywords:Agribusiness;Policy;Innovation;Development;Private enterprise;Food and Agriculture Organization;Cornell University;Rural infrastructure;Agro-industries;Competitiveness;Resource mobilizatiom

This sourcebook appraises these instruments and considers their nature and objectives, their potential benefits and challenges and the approaches used to implement them. It also examines the practices that have led to both successful and unsuccessful outcomes. The publication provides a comprehensive review of the potential of these tools to enhance value addition, deliver jobs, increase exports and provide markets for new and existing producers in the targeted territories. It notes, however, that implementation of these tools poses a number of challenges. For example, planners and practitioners sometimes use them interchangeably, thus ignoring the specificities of the investments, policies and processes required, and their expected outcomes. The sourcebook concludes that these tools have potential for catalytic impact, but planners need to make sound choices that respect demonstrated principles and follow good practices for effective design and implementation.

Between 2013 and 2015, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the French National Institute for Agricultural Research (INRA) undertook a survey of innovative approaches that enable markets to act as incentives in the transition towards sustainable agriculture in developing countries. Through a competitive selection process, 15 cases from around the world provide insights into how small-scale initiatives that use sustainable production practices are supported by market demand, and create innovations in the institutions that govern sustainable practices and market exchanges. These cases respond to both local and distant consumers’ concerns about the quality of the food that they eat. The book evidences that the initiatives rely upon social values (e.g. trustworthiness, health [nutrition and food safety], food sovereignty, promotion of youth and rural development, farmer and community livelihoods) to adapt sustainable practices to local contexts, while creating new market outlets for food products. Specifically, private sector and civil society actors are leading partnerships with the public sector to build market infrastructure, integrate sustainable agriculture into private and public education and extension programmes, and ensure the exchange of transparent information about market opportunities. The results are: (i) system innovations that allow new rules for marketing and assuring the sustainable qualities of products; (ii) new forms of organization that permit actors to play multiple roles in the food system (e.g. farmer and auditor, farmer and researcher, consumer and auditor, consumer and intermediary); (iii) new forms of market exchange, such as box schemes, university kiosks, public procurement or systems of seed exchanges; and (iv) new technologies for sustainable agriculture (e.g. effective micro-organisms, biopesticides and soil analysis techniques). The public sector plays a key role in providing legitimate political and physical spaces for multiple actors to jointly create and share sustainable agricultural knowledge, practices and products.

Managing the ability of agriculture to meet rising global demand and to respond to the changes and opportunities will require good policy, sustained investments, and innovation - not business as usual. Investments in public Research and Development, extension, education, and their links with one another have elicited high returns and pro-poor growth, but these investments alone will not elicit innovation at the pace or on the scale required by the intensifying and proliferating challenges confronting agriculture. Experience indicates that aside from a strong capacity in Research and Development, the ability to innovate is often related to collective action, coordination, the exchange of knowledge among diverse actors, the incentives and resources available to form partnerships and develop businesses, and conditions that make it possible for farmers or entrepreneurs to use the innovations. While consensus is developing about what is meant by 'innovation' and 'innovation system', no detailed blueprint exists for making agricultural innovation happen at a given time, in a given place, for a given result. The AIS approach that looks at these multiple conditions and relationships that promote innovation in agriculture, has however moved from a concept to a sub-discipline with principles of analysis and action. AIS investments must be specific to the context, responding to the stage of development in a particular country and agricultural sector, especially the AIS. This sourcebook contributes to identifying, designing, and implementing the investments, approaches, and complementary interventions that appear most likely to strengthen AIS and to promote agricultural innovation and equitable growth. It emphasizes the lessons learned, benefits and impacts, implementation issues, and prospects for replicating or expanding successful practices. The information in this sourcebook derives from approaches that have been tested at different scales in different contexts. It reflects the experiences and evolving understanding of numerous individuals and organizations concerned with agricultural innovation, including the World Bank. This information is targeted to the key operational staff in international and regional development agencies and national governments who design and implement lending projects and to the practitioners who design thematic programs and technical assistance packages. The sourcebook can also be an important resource for the research community and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs).

In recent years, a renewed focus on agriculture has been evident in policy and development agendas for the African continent, yet little knowledge has been generated on the interlinkages of production, agroindustry and markets, as well as the potentials and challenges for developing these. This publication analyzes the challenges, the potential and opportunities of African agribusiness in the current period of dramatic changes in global agro-industrial markets, and builds a case for agribusiness development as a path to Africa's prosperity. Written by international experts, from agribusiness practitioners, to academic experts and UN technical agencies, this volume fills what the United Nations Industrial Development Organization perceived as a significant gap in knowledge concerning these issues.

The volume analyses how to make Science, Technology and Innovation (STI) Policies relevant for inclusive growth strategies in Africa.The base for a transformative STI policy is to link the STI policies to Africa's economic transformation policies. In a first part the general issues of introducing effective STI policies are presented. In a second part country case studies highlight the new approach. Cases such as Sudan and Nigeria are analysed, as these two countries have a long history of STI development; because of different history, size and structure they need to move in different directions towards a coherent STI policy for inclusive growth.