1. Transforming the agri-food
industry to develop rural
livelihoods under global change
Laura Pereira- FAC Early Career Fellow
Young People, Farming and Food Conference: International Conference
on the future of the agrifood sector in Africa
Accra, Ghana: 19th -21st March 2012

2. Outline
• The Private Sector
• ‘Waves of consumerism’
• South Africa as a case study
– Procurement policies
– Innovation
• Conclusions

3. The Private Sector
• Food system is undergoing multiple
transformations
• Growth and Globalisation of agri-food
companies
– Concentration of Power
• Profit-maximisation vs Rural Livelihood
Development agenda
Figure 1: A simplified schema of agribusiness in the food system

4. Waves of Consumerism
in the West
• Industrialisation, mechanisation and
urbanisation
– Haber-Bosch process 1909
– Food produced to feed a growing urban
population not working the land themselves
– ‘Green Revolution’-esque
• Establishment of supermarkets
– Schumpeter’s Disruptive competition
– Consumer culture transformed
– Rapid growth
– Universally applicable

5. Waves of consumerism
contd.
• Globalisation of supermarkets
– Multinational food corporations
– Disconnect between food’s consumption
and its production
• The ‘Alternative food’ movement
– Trust = Certified local, organic, Fair Trade…
– WTO SPS standards of ‘safe’
– GlobalG.A.P and retailer standards
• Transforming how farmers farm
– How does the African food system respond?

7. South Africa
• Microcosm of international trends
– Leader in agribusiness on the continent with a well-
established retail sector together with apartheid
legacy of rural underdevelopment
South Africa retailers has a triple prerogative
regarding the food system:
– To ensure development and job creation in order to establish a
viable customer base
– To build a successful food sector through creating and sourcing
products that meet not only the requirements of customers,
international food safety requirements, but that are also socially
acceptable for an ‘African context’ (Malan 2005).
– To ensure that these above objectives are resilient under
pressure form global environmental change.

8. Procurement policies
• Under increasing uncertainty around
climate change, they are spreading the
risks of sourcing
– Within South Africa to smallscale farmers
• Skills and capacity development
• Logistics (transport, storage etc.)
– Into the rest of Africa
• Skills development
– ‘Buddy’ system
– Sustainable farming

9. Innovation
• Mitigation and Adaptation
• Product development
– E.g. Climate resilient crops: Morvite, Cassava
beer,
• Multi-stakeholder approaches (e.g.
Business fights poverty)
– Tackling poverty through
strategic business initiatives

10. Conclusions
• International trends in consumerism are
affecting African agriculture
• Africa needs to forge its own stages of
food consumption that invigorates its rural
areas
• Key take-home: If businesses are truly concerned with
developmental/environmental concerns, then they need to create
markets for what farmers can and want to grow rather than forcing
them to meet ever-more stringent requirements through certification
etc.
• BUT Power dynamics are still important

11. Thank you