Contributions

CoA 1.2 Value chains, markets and drivers of adoption

The target beneficiaries of GLDC research are engaged in subsistence production, but they also sell parts of their produce to market outlets and so the households are integrated into the cash economy. These markets include more distant markets that often offer higher prices and local markets which are essential for rural households, their income and nutritional status. In addition to the important local market outlets, growing demand for healthy food options by urban and peri-urban consumers will receive specific attention for its role as a profitable niche market but also as a driver for longer term changes in eating habits by the whole population as experienced in more developed markets over the past decade¹²⁴. The analysis of ongoing initiatives like the Smart Food campaign will generate valuable lessons in this area.

Thus this cluster combines the analysis of a) local, regional and international market demands for GLDC products and their characteristics; b) input and output value chain effectiveness at national and regional scales; and c) household preferences for new technologies and practices within their wider on- and off-farm livelihood systems. The value chain framework and the structure-conduct-performance approaches will be used to identify key constraints and opportunities along the chain aiming for increased competitiveness in production, marketing and processing. The key clients for these outputs are FP2 Transforming Agri-food Systems and FP4 Variety and Hybrid Development where, respectively, action research interventions within agri-food and seed supply systems must be chosen from candidate GLDC value chains.

Successful scaling of any technology also requires a detailed understanding of the drivers of, and constraints to, adoption at the household and farm level. A careful consideration of the often heterogeneous target group(s) and their livelihood systems is critically important. Keys to successful scaling include analysis of target group segregation within the continuum of market- and subsistence-oriented farmers¹²⁵, deepening understanding of the end-user’s demands for product and technology attributes and resulting benefits, and what makes an effective technology an attractive one for rural households and value chain actors.

Potential tensions and trade-offs between market demand and farmer needs will be investigated in the context of the underlying goals and objectives of households as well as their information requirements and corresponding dissemination channels. While the importance of GLDC crops in the farm households’ cropping portfolio is established, understanding further dimensions of smallholder livelihood diversity in terms of crop-tree-livestock systems is still lacking. Likewise, the analysis will disaggregate adoption patterns across different plot managers and their status within the household and add consideration of intra-household dynamics to establish a deeper understanding of the adoption process and impacts on women and the youth. Because widespread adoption requires behavior change, methods beyond ‘classical’ adoption studies will be used from fields such as behavioral economics and psychology (e.g., choice experiments), marketing (consumer decision theories and market segmentation methodologies), communication and other fields that target the understanding of human behavior and decision making.