Bridging the Gap: Formulating Value Chains for Orphan Crops in Africa

1. Formulating Value Chains for Orphan Crops in AfricaCesar Revoredo-Giha (coordinator)Fiona Burnett, Tiffany Wood, Faical Akaichi, Montse Costa-Font, Ian Dawson, Steve Hoad, Andreia Silva, Luiza Toma, Jon BancicGlobal Challenges Research Fund RCUK Council – BBSRCMay 2017 – August 2019

2. Project • Thematic area - Systems that deliver safe and nutritious food for all, It is a foundation award (initial work). • Project partners: SRUC Food Marketing Research (FMR), Edinburgh Complex Fluids Partnership (ECFP) and SRUC Crops and Soil Systems (CSS). • Project aim: Tobridge the supply of orphan crops with consumption, ensuring that supply side research will have an impact on consumption and nutrition by concentrating on the demand-led development of food products and ingredients. • Parts: (1) Value chain analysis; (2) New ingredients and foods based on orphan crops; (3) Solutions to bottlenecks in the production of required orphan crops • Countries of study: Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Nigeria, Tanzania and Uganda.

3. Motivation • The current strategy as regards orphan crops focuses on: • applying genetics to these crops to increase their productivity and resilience to climate change. • increasing production diversity and thus increasing consumption diversity. • The strategy does not incorporate an explicit demand component. • The link from production to consumption is not straightforward. • Changes in diets, particularly in urban areas, due to their “westernization” have the potential to hamper the AOCC research because orphan crops are part of traditional diets that are being displaced.

4. Project work programme

5. 1. Value chain analysis • To help crop and food scientists involved in the selection and utilisation of orphan crops (finger millet and amaranth). • To examine the role that orphan crops play in the current diets of Sub-Saharan Africa consumers, e.g. whether they are being replaced by other products. • To analyse what current use is made of orphan crop products as ingredients in new foodstuffs launched in Sub-Saharan Africa markets (i.e. develop understanding of industrial use at present) and where there is the potential to introduce them (marketing). • To study the structure of the particular supply chains associated with orphan crops(case studies). • Additional work on demand preferences. • To formulate a mathematical simulation model based on the different elements generated in the project.

6. 2. New ingredients and foods based on orphan crops • To select (in discussion), based on the overall aim of the project to support reformulation in food processing using the orphan crops to consider in the project. • To study the suitability of ingredients derived from these orphan crops for creating doughs with the physical properties required to withstand manufacturing processes and make good food products. • To recommend recipes and processing methods to make suitable food products, e.g. bread, using starches from orphan crops rather than from wheat, mindful of introducing processes that remove toxins that may be present in such crops.

7. 3. Solutions to bottlenecks in the production of required orphan crops • To select (in discussion) a small number of orphan crops for agronomic research in the current project. • To establish strategies for improving yield and quality, including processing quality, in the selected orphan crops by inclusion of technical advances in crop management, dependant on local needs and resources. • To scope the crop ideotypes and specific traits that are expected to improve crop resilience to climate change (aim is consistent yield and quality in variable and extreme temperatures and under erratic and scarce supply of water). • To develop strategies to identify locally adapted cultivars with improved tolerance to emerging threats and increased nutrient use efficiency. This will help the project identify desirable crop traits that could be more widely incorporated in breeding programmes including follow-up initiatives.

8. Some work doneExploring the effects of increasing underutilized crops on consumers’ diets: The case of millet in UgandaC. Revoredo-Giha, F. Akaichi and L. Toma

9. Motivation and purpose • The paper investigates the implications of expanding the consumption of underutilised crops on current diets by considering consumers’ preferences. • We studied the consumption of millet in Uganda. • The choice of (finger) millet was because it is one of the selected cereal orphan crops for research by the African Orphan Crops Consortium (AOCC, 2016) • Also cereals contribute over 40% of total direct human dietary calorie intake in Eastern Africa (Gierend and Orr, 2015). • The method consists of a modified version of the microeconomic consumer problem, which is augmented with linear constraints using generalized rationing theory (Jackson, 1991; Irz et al., 2015). • Preferences enter in the work in the form of price and income elasticities.

10. Method – Impact of an increase on the quantity of millet on the diet The economic problem of the consumer of maximising her preferences (represented by the utility function U(.) subject to her budget constraint that expenditure has to be lesser or equal than income was modified adding two constraints forcing the consumer to increase her purchases of fruits and vegetables.

11. Mean Adequacy Ratio • The study also estimated the change in the nutritional value of the diet (in contrast of the nutritional value of millet alone). • It used the Mean Adequacy Ratio (MAR), which estimates the percentage of mean daily intake of beneficial nutrients with 100 per cent representing a diet which would conform to all of these nutritional requirements (Vieux et al., 2013). • The nutrients used on the formula, chosen due to data availability, were 10, namely: calcium, iron, zinc, vitamin C, thiamine (vitamin B1), riboflavin (vitamin B2), niacin (vitamin B3), vitamin B6, folate and vitamin A.

12. Data • The exercise considered three groups: rural, urban- poor and urban-rich. • Most of the required information for the 3 groups was obtained from Boysen (2016), who estimated unconditional (Marshallian and Hicksian) own price elasticities and income (expenditure) elasticities for Uganda by expenditure quintile for 14 food items. • Estimates used the 2012/2013 Ugandan National Household Survey (UNHS). • The 14 items groups where expanded to 28 categories adding another stage to Boysen’s demand system. • The information was completed using nutritional coefficients.

13. Simulations • The implemented simulation model was used for two simulations that aimed to increase the amount of millet in the diets of the three consumer groups by 50% and by 100% (i.e., duplicate it). • Although these percentages might appear large, the quantities of millet in the diet are small, so the actual increase in quantity on the consumer diet is not that high. • On the other hand, large increases on the demand of millet are needed to encourage expansion on the supply of millet.

14. Change in purchases (rural and upper urban group) The expansion of millet on the diet brings very small changes on the purchases of the other products.

15. Change in nutrients (rural and upper urban group) The introduction of millet and the changes in other products improve some of the nutrients but has a negative effect on others (e.g., vitamin B6, vitamin A).

16. MAR by group and simulation Given the small size of millet in the diet, its expansion affects little nutrition. Another way of seeing this is under the current preferences the impact of any increase in the production of millet is limited

17. Multidisciplinary approach to expand significantly the consumption of millet

18. Final remarks • Orphan crops cited as having a role in the improvement of food security; However, traditional diets are being abandoned (millet is part of it). • The analysis indicates that to increase millet in the diet would require an unrealistic significant reduction of prices. • Work needed on increasing consumers’ appreciation for millet as part of their everyday diet. • Appeals to consumers cannot be a mere afterthought, nor can they simply be framed in terms of development policy or agricultural advantages (Chera, 2017) . • Potential nutritional, environmental, and economic benefits of embracing agricultural biodiversity are not likely to be enough to change their preferences as regards millets. • There is the need to bring millet closer to consumers’ tastes and preferenceswhich will be a slow interdisciplinary process with roles for both natural and social scientists.

19. Additional material

20. Some evidence (Sibhatu, Krishna, and Qaim, 2015) • Because many of the poor and undernourished people are smallholder farmers, diversifying production on these smallholder farms is widely perceived as an useful approach to improve dietary diversity. • Household-level data from Indonesia, Kenya, Ethiopia, and Malawi show that on-farm production diversity is positively associated with dietary diversity in some situations, but not when production diversity is already high (too much diversification may lead to missed gains from specialisation). • Market access has positive effects on dietary diversity, which are larger than those of increased production diversity. • Be careful with the suggestion that increasing on-farm diversity is an effective way to improve dietary diversity in smallholder households. • However, at aggregate level, diversification of agricultural systems is needed for diet diversification (calorie supply vs. nutritional deficiencies).

21. Some evidence (Carletto, Corral and Guelfi, 2017) • The transition from subsistence to commercial agriculture is key for economic growth. But what are the consequences for nutritional outcomes? • This study contributes to revisiting two prevailing wisdoms: (a) market participation by African smallholders remains low; and (b) the impact of commercialisation on nutritional outcomes is generally positive. • Analysis of data from Malawi, Tanzania and Uganda reveals: • High levels of commercialisation by even the poorest and smallest landholders (some reach 90%) • Little evidence of a positive relationship between commercialisation and nutritional status (FAO-FIVISM and UNICEF nutritional framework). • As countries and international agencies prioritise the importance of nutrition-sensitive agriculture, better understanding of the transmission channels between crop choices and nutritional outcomes should remain a research priority.

22. Some evidence (Carletto, Ruel, Winters and Zezza, 2015) • The expansion of any economic activity (including agriculture) can have an impact on nutrition through higher income: • Amount, composition and quality of the food consumed • Purchase of health- and nutrition-related goods and services • Purchase of specially formulated foods or supplements for young children. • Evidence shows commercialisation of agriculture and the resulting shift away from staples to cash crops did not result in improvements in children’s nutritional status and in some cases may have negative nutritional consequences on the poor (Von Braun & Kennedy, 1994). • Lessons learned suggest that agricultural income is important, but not sufficient to improve nutrition, especially among poor farming households (who lack access to health services and adequate water, sanitation and hygiene services) (again see FAO and UNICEF frameworks).

23. References • Sibhatu, K. T., Krishna, V. V., and Qaim, M. (2015). Production diversity and dietary diversity in smallholder farm households. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 112(34), 10657-10662. • Carletto, C., Corral, P., and Guelfi, A. (2017). Agricultural commercialization and nutrition revisited: Empirical evidence from three African countries. Food Policy, 67, 106-118. • Carletto, G., Ruel, M., Winters, P., and Zezza, A. (2015). Farm-level pathways to improved nutritional status: introduction to the special issue. The Journal of Development Studies.

24. FAO-Food Insecurity and Vulnerability Information and Mapping Systems (FIVIMS) framework

25. Causality model of malnutrition (UNICEF)