Value Chains: From Production to Market

A product's journey from raw material to end consumer is often fraught with inefficiencies. In many East African agricultural sectors, post-harvest losses and multiple layers of middlemen erode the value captured by producers.

The Systemic Approach

Market Systems Development (MSD) requires us to look beyond the transaction and analyze the supporting functions and rules. Is infrastructure the bottleneck? Is it information asymmetry? Or is it a lack of trust between actors?

Aggregating for Power

Smallholder farmers and micro-manufacturers lack bargaining power individually. By strengthening cooperatives and aggregation centers, we enable economies of scale. This allows producers to negotiate better prices, access bulk inputs, and fulfill larger contracts that would otherwise be out of reach.

For sustainable development, market access must be inclusive, ensuring that women and youth are not just participants, but beneficiaries of value chain upgrading.