Hi all,
Here is the latest input received on topic #5 - "The importance of food businesses to small farms”
—Peter

Q5.1/5 - Question "5.1.  What kind of food businesses are important to small farms in your region? Which of these are small food businesses? Please also explain how you define small food businesses."

1/ From: Laura Arnalte Mur <[log in to unmask]> (Spain)
I am Laura Arnalte Mur, agronomist working at the Universitat Politècnica de València (UPV) in Spain, and member of the UPV’s SALSA project team.

Our region of study for the SALSA project is the province of Castellón.
In this region we found that the typology of Small Food Businesses (SFB) very much depends on the product or products they work with, but generally they can be differentiated according to their activity, whether they are packagers, processors, artisan food makers or retailers. These activities are rarely carried out on-farm, even when the final destination is self-consumption, as in the case of olive oil.

Sorting and packaging is important for export crops such as citrus, one of the main products from the region with an important participation of small farmers. This activity at small scale is done by either farmers’ cooperatives or private companies, and it is essential for this crop to access the market.
Processing and food product making is particularly important for those primary products that require some transformation for their final consumption, such as milling olives into olive oil, almond cracking, making nougat (“turrón”) from almonds, or animal slaughtering and making meat products like sausages. In our study region, oil milling is dominated by farmers’ cooperatives, often at small to medium scale, and artisan foods are made by small businesses.

A particular case of food retailers are the independent butchers’, which are almost always small businesses, most of them make their own meat products (sausages, hams, etc.) and tend to keep close connections with their supplying farms, also independent.


2/ From: Langelihle Simela <[log in to unmask]> (Republic of South Africa - RSA)
In RSA I would say direct sales to customers (informal trade) are important to smallholder farmers and generate better income for them (e.g. poultry production as shown below). The challenge is that such markets have limited growth opportunities and hence for a farmer to expand further they’d need to link into  corporate value chains where the profit margins are smaller but production cycles much more frequent.

(graph follows right below here - I hope it still shows after the message went through the e-conference server).
[cid:C0F97D3F-78F8-4C03-949C-4AB8BB990BF6]
Source: Bureau for Food and Agricultural Policy: 2016-2025 Outlook

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Q5.2/4 - Question "5.2.  Do food businesses in your region play an important role within the food system? How? Please provide specific examples.”

1/ From: Laura Arnalte Mur <[log in to unmask]> (Spain)
The SALSA study found small food businesses to be important in the region from the economic and social point of view, as they produce and/or sell high quality products, generate economic activity in some areas threatened by depopulation, and have a more direct relationship with clients and, in some cases, their supplying farmers, than large food businesses.

Small farmers’ cooperatives with handling and/or processing activity were also pointed out as playing an important role in maintaining economic activity in rural areas through the generation of employment opportunities rooted in villages.

2/ From: Leslie Berger <[log in to unmask]> (UK)
My name is Leslie Berger and I am a Senior Sustainability Consultant at ADAS, we are the largest agri-environmental sustainability consultants in the UK. For more information about ADAS see our website http://www.adas.uk/

ADAS works closely with international food and drinks manufacturers who source their raw materials globally from a range of farm types, from large commercial farm businesses through to individual smallholder farmers.  In our experience with one major food manufacturer who is sourcing raw materials from India, smallholder farmers’ crops  are collected at the village level.   These village groups contract directly with the food manufacturer to sell their product.  In many cases they are not organised into businesses, just local village farmers coming together to aggregate their crops.

In this example, the food manufacturer has supported the collection of relevant data on water use by smallholder farmers in their supply chains.  We have collected and analysed this data to identify areas where smallholders’ water use efficiency may be improved.  The results of this analysis are then used by the food manufacturer to support relevant mitigation options e.g. improved irrigation scheduling, capital improvements, crop management advice.  This food manufacturer provides direct support to the smallholder farmers though a series of project.  The benefits of having the large manufacturer supporting this supply chain is that they have the resources to roll out and scale up this type of support reaching thousands of smallholder farmers across the world.  In this case, improvements are being made in water use efficiency.

In a second example, we have supported ABInBev (formally SABMiller) with their raw material sourcing sustainability agenda.  They are committed to improving the livelihoods of smallholder farmers as well as the sustainability of their crop production in Africa, while also boosting the profitability of their business.  ABInBev are working closely with farmers across Africa to support the production of beer from local products such as cassava and sorghum.  In one example they are working through their local branch Zambian Breweries, to support smallholder cassava farmers.  Zambian Breweries have reformulated this beer product to use a higher proportion of cassava, and have simplified the amount of processing (peeling, cutting and drying) the farmer has to do before selling the cassava to them.  This has provided a new market outlet as previously cassava was either consumed locally or exported.   Encouraging greater production of cassava is also helping to reduce the use of artificial fertiliser, as casava has lower fertiliser requirements than the maize that was previously grown.   ABinBev are hoping to scale up this project in Zambia reaching 5,000 smallholder farmers by the end of 2018, and are investing in similar projects in other African countries.

see: https://www.iol.co.za/business-report/international/zambian-breweries-cassava-project-to-reach-5000-small-scale-farmers-by-year-end-14131058

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