There is no appropriate infrastructure for food trading in almost all urban areas
Charles Dhewa
While many organisations assume farmers and agricultural value chain actors need simple information such as prices and buyers, such few details are no longer enough for serious decision making.
That is why agricultural value chain actors are mastering the art of delivering results through relationships. Such capabilities are not taught in school or college.
On the other hand, an increase in communication tools and methods is not improving agricultural value chain actor’s capacity to deliver superior results through their relationships. The way farmers and traders interpret meaning from information that they receive is influenced by pre-existing patterns of information in their minds.
Farmers, traders and other smart value chain actors have long since realised that their knowledge is incomplete and imperfect. That is why they choose to be continuous learners. They have become aware that their knowledge is context sensitive and situation dependent.
Any small shift in the context or situation requires shifting or expanding knowledge, which in turn drives different decisions and actions to achieve the desired outcomes.
Since no single person can know all there is to know regarding a specific agricultural commodity, value chain actors use markets to interact with peers who have expertise in different domains of agricultural knowledge. Continuously learning from each other in agricultural markets provides the best opportunity for making wise decisions.
Simple is not equivalent to effective
It is through agricultural markets that many farmers are realising that in most cases simple information leads to simple answers yet tough issues they often confront require detailed and complex information. By over-simplifying information, extension agents and development organisations render the information useless for various contexts.
It conveys the notion that messy challenges like markets and climate change are easy to handle yet that is not the case. It is better for farmers and value chain actors to know the animal they are dealing with than rely on superficial solutions such as climate smart agriculture which are nothing new but a new name to conventional practices.
Where sharing knowledge is presented as too simple, it becomes difficult for farmers and other actors to find it and re-use it. There are more barriers to understanding and re-using agricultural information than in sharing it. Many organisations are fond of pushing information to farmers than understanding how it is used in order to adjust knowledge sharing mechanisms.
Towards a new mental software
In recognition of the current limitations of existing information sharing mechanisms in Zimbabwean agriculture, eMKambo has started planting new ideas into the subconscious of farmers, traders and other value chain actors.
Such ways of cultivating a mental software are meant to trigger past thoughts or experience in ways that help them in navigating new and familiar ideas. Consolidating available knowledge into a new mental software is being approached from the consumption side with identifying and embedding the following content:
Consumer population in urban centres, growth points and rural areas
Major details being collected include size of population and characteristics in terms gender and age in all areas. While the population in Zimbabwe’s urban centres has traditionally been categorised into low, medium and high population areas, it seems we now have another category made up of over-populated squatter settlements in peri-urban areas where levels of income and population density give these areas a new characteristic different from high density areas. Most of the people in squatter settlements do not buy food from supermarkets because their incomes are too low to think of travelling all the way to supermarkets. The majority of people in these areas provide labour to other classes and are sometimes paid in the form of food items. In these areas you can get cooking oil for one bond coin and a few spoons of sugar going for as low as three bond coins.
Consumption and food systems versus income levels
This is an important piece of content. What we might call low or poor quality chicken or low grade tomatoes are in high demand and afforded by the majority.
Sources of income
This speaks to employment and employability. It is important to get a sense of people’s sources of income.
The unique role of vendors:
Vendors are powerful sources of information and knowledge based on their intimate knowledge of their customers who are the major end-users. We now have vegetable and fruit vendors in low density areas such as Borrowdale in Harare and Hillside in Bulawayo. It is important to find out who is now living in Borrowdale and Hillside to be considered a strong market by fresh food vendors. Many low density residents are no longer buying fruits and vegetables from super markets. They either grow in their gardens or buy from vendors.
Vendors
Identifying and characterising local markets
Each area, whether urban or rural, now has a market place. While some markets are clearly visible, others are dynamic and invisible. Seasonality plays a critical role in characterising the market. What is the role of Mbare in Harare’s food economy? Hatchcliffe market? Chikwanha market? etc. What is the role of Sakubva and Chipangano markets in Mutare’s food economy? What about Garikayi and Mucheke markets in Masvingo? eMalaleni, BUTA and Shasha markets in Bulawayo? Kudzanayi and Kombayi in Gweru? Kwekwe informal market? We will also map road side markets such as Bomba in Gokwe, Esigodini in Matabeleland South and several in different parts of the country.
From research to intelligent decisions
Robust research and evaluation of activities in agricultural markets can generate important evidence required by farmers and other value chain actors in making their judgements and taking advantage of available options.
Ultimately they can make intelligent decisions about better ways of spending scarce financial resources in the agriculture sector. At the moment, assessing the strength of evidence is a challenging task for farmers and most value chain actors. Sometimes it requires a combination of technical knowledge from specialists in farming areas and individual judgements. Consultation with traders, consumers and other people outside agriculture is also very important.
By converting value chain actors’ unspoken knowledge and market data into a reliable mental software, eMKambo aims to help value chain actors in using agricultural evidence responsibly and judiciously. It is very difficult for farmers, traders and other value chain actors to remember everything they know without a structured memory aid. A mental software mechanism helps them to:
- Understand distinctions between different data and information circulating in the agriculture sector as well as biases hidden in analytical methods.
- Establish a common agricultural value chain language that can be used to understand what is happening in agricultural ecosystems.
Policy implications
Besides making the size of the food economy visible, the mental software can reveal how urban populations and households support agricultural value chains. It can also show the extent to which cash shortages are affecting agricultural value chains. Where consumers used to afford a crate of tomatoes, lack of cash is forcing them to buy half of what they often bought. Making it worse is that commodities are competing for the little available cash, thus entrenching commodity over-supply.
Inclusive financial models can come in to show how financing value chain actors such as traders triggers demand for commodities from farmers. At the moment, vendors are good at extending credit in the form of commodities to households on the trust that when the household gets money it will pay back. Bridge finance from banks will help vendors to continue hoarding commodities from the market. Conversely, in the absence of finance they end up waiting for consumers to pay in order to hoard commodities from the market and that negatively affects farmers who will have to wait longer with commodities.
Availability of robust evidence through the mental software should trigger revision of the SME policy towards supporting agro-food trading. Currently, there is no appropriate infrastructure for food trading in almost all urban areas due to lack of enabling policy instruments. SMEs are considered a homogeneous group yet some, like food traders, need tailor-made infrastructure like warehousing and cooling facilities. The supply side (production) has an over-supply of policies but the same cannot be said for the demand side, before we even look at the export side.
Revealing supply trends and sizes will provide insights into climate change policy. At the moment, climate change is approached from a production perspective yet the market and consumption patterns can tell us a great deal about how climate is changing. The impact of climate change can be felt in the urban population. It is urban populations who trigger import bills as they fail to respond to food shortages. Mapping the whole food sector through a mental software will provide important knowledge for addressing numerous challenges. In addition to surfacing the level of poverty in both rural and urban areas, this effort will contribute to the re-definition of poverty and wealth creation.
- Charles Dhewa is a proactive knowledge management specialist and chief executive officer of Knowledge Transfer Africa (Pvt) (www.knowledgetransafrica.com) whose flagship eMKambo (www.emkambo.co.zw) has a presence in more than 20 agricultural markets in Zimbabwe. He can be contacted on:[email protected]; Mobile: 774 430 309 / 772 137 717/ 712 737 430