Integrating Smallholder Farmers to Commodity Value Chains in Sub-Saharan Africa: Challenges, Prospects and Policy Issues

Abstract

The participation of smallholder farmers in commodity value chains in sub-Saharan Africa has generally been low. Commodity and location-specific factors in favour of and against farmers’ participation in agricultural value chains have been documented in contemporary literature. However, the analysis of farmers’ prospects to integrate into such value chains has predominantly focused on specific commodities or groups of related commodities, leading to recommendations that apply to studied commodities only. There is a need to compare and contrast farmers’ prospects to integrate into different agricultural commodities and generate comprehensive lessons on what works and under what circumstances. This chapter has adopted a multi-commodity approach to assess such prospects for smallholder dairy and vegetable farmers in selected countries in sub-Saharan Africa. The approach is deemed appropriate because it identifies challenges and reveals opportunities for a wider group of actors within the value chains. The main objective is to identify several productivity, quality and market linkage-enhancing interventions that can increase farmers’ participation in value chains and their incomes.