Department of Agricultural, Food, and Resource Economics Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Food Security Policy

Reardon, T., T. Awokuse, S. Haggblade, T. Kapuya, S. Liverpool-Tasie, F. Meyer, B. Minten, D. Nyange, J. Rusike, D. Tschirley, R. Vos. 2019. “Private Sector’s Role in Agricultural Transformation in Africa: Overview,” Chapter 1 in  AGRA. (2019). Africa Agriculture Status Report: The Hidden Middle: A Quiet Revolution in the Private Sector Driving Agricultural Transformation (Issue 7). Nairobi, Kenya: Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA).

Abstract

We are poised on the edge of a breakthrough for agriculture in Africa. This is vital not only for the food security of hundreds of millions of Africans, but also for the African economy and sustainable development on the continent. We see a transformation underway from a subsistence-oriented agriculture sector into one that is more commercialized, profitably productive, and smallholder and entrepreneurled. This comes at a time when food systems across the continent are responding to rapid urbanization, rising incomes, and changing diets.

Agricultural value chains are becoming more urbanized and consumer driven, with a greater emphasis on quality and food safety. These dynamics are creating many new growth opportunities within Africa’s food systems. Output and employment in agriculture continue to grow, and a great deal of value addition and employment is being created along value chains in the form of agricultural trade, farm services, agroprocessing, urban retailing, and food services. However, these changes are not just happening on farms and in national governments.

This Report examines the crucial role played by small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in driving this transformation. The midstream of the food value chain is particularly important, as it is the closest the market gets to the farmer. This midstream consists of traders, truckers and processors. They connect the farmer with the downstream—retailers. The midstream constitutes about 40% of the total gross value of the value chains in sub-Saharan Africa. This is the same as the share from farms, and together, they are the essence of food value chains in Africa.

About 80% of the midstream of the value chains comprises SMEs. These are the motors of the value chain transformation, and of rural employment off farm. We call this sector the “Hidden Middle” because it is often hidden from the policy debate—but it is not a “missing middle”. Contrary to perceptions, this Report shows not only that the private sector is present, but that it has already “taken off”, and is ready for support and investment to thrive further. In fact, this Hidden Middle is dynamic, and undergoing and driving a “Quiet Revolution”.

We must learn from this, and help governments replicate it at scale across the continent, with improved support from public infrastructure and sound policies. Governments and donors need not “reinvent the wheel” and step in directly to provide warehouses or transport or aggregation facilities, for example. The private sector is already providing these services. The role of government is instead to remove the constraints facing them and help the Quiet Revolution proceed further and faster.

Infrastructure and policy investments are how governments can help. This amplifies the role of the private sector in driving agricultural productivity, opening up markets, and facilitating increased private investment in the sector. Roads connect farmers to input and output markets, while public investment in more and improved wholesale markets in secondary cities and rural towns helps connect farmers products to where the demand is. As the processing sector grows, it will create value addition and markets, but it will need and seek more raw material supply— something the right policy and regulatory framework can help with. 

This publication is a product of intense scholarly work on the core chapters that I hope will stimulate intense discussion and a productive synthesis of ideas that will lead us forward in this critical work. I am most grateful to the contributors for their efforts and support to the much needed transformation of agriculture in Africa.