Agro-Food Systems Change and Food Security: Beyond the Land Grab Discourse Rrefiloe Joala South Africa

1. Agro-Food Systems Change and Food Security:
Beyond the Land Grab Discourse
Refiloe Joala
rjoala@plaas.org.za
Panel Session: Africa’s Youth and Rural Futures:
Critical Perspectives from Young African Academics
Conference on Land Policy in Africa
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia – November 2017
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Funded by UK aid from the UK Government

2. Agro-food Systems
Change and Food
Security: Beyond the
Land Grab Discourse
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3. Outline of the Presentation
1. Background
 Beyond the ‘land grab’ discourse
 Agro-food system: definition and key concepts
2. Study site and methodology
 Gurue district
3. Research findings
 Reconfiguration of input supply
 Why soybeans?
 Ready markets
 What does this mean for small-scale farmers?
 Changing consumption patterns
 Big farms, big problems
4. Conclusion
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4. Introduction
1. Investment in African agriculture
has been given greater global
priority following the multiple
crises of food, finance, and
energy that triggered the land
rush.
2. African food systems are
undergoing deep transformations
evidenced by, on the one hand,
increasing levels of investment in
consumer markets and on the
other hand, the growing
commercialisation and
financialisation of natural
resources.
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5. Beyond the ’land grab’ discourse
• New actors entering agricultural value chain,
bringing with them new business logics.
• Growing corporatisation of farming inputs supply,
and the the production, processing and retailing of
food through PPPs
• Land use changes, characterised by a shift from
production of staple food crops for local
consumption to food production for domestic
exchange.
• Fewer actors controlling agro-food value chains
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6. Agro-food system: definitions and concepts
• A broader food systems approach highlights the
relationships, interactions and dependencies of diverse
agents that coordinate the activities of input providers,
producers and downstream agents across scales, levels
and space (Friedmann and McMichael 1989).
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FAO: “the set of institutions and activities which
combine to make and distribute agro-food
products, and consequently act to meet human
nutrition needs in a particular society.”

7. Gurue district
• Gurúè district has attracted
a range of agro-investors
since the onset of the land
rush in 2008
• In some instances, the
NGOs, public and private
sector have engaged in
agro-investment
partnerships.
o Sharing finance risks
and management
responsibilities
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8. Reconfiguration of input supply
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CLUSA introduced the production of soy beans among small-scale farmers in
2006 and established Federation of Producers of Gurue (FEPROG).
In 2009 CLUSA commenced with demonstration plots as a part of its Prosoya
project: Between August 2012 and June 2017 and 3599 farmers participated
in the project in Gurue , while only 189 farmers obtained a DUAT
In 2010, TechnoServe joined CLUSA to form another two projects (GateSoja
and Agri-Futuro) , which aimed to upscale the production of soybeans and
improve local seed production
Phoenix seeds reported that 60% of seed sale were to small-scale farmers

9. Why soybeans?
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• Changing food consumption patterns, particularly rising
demand for meat, linked to growing income levels and rapid
urbanisation across the region (Ncube et al 2016).
• Beyond this, forward linkages with animal feed and poultry
markets do not only offer benefit for soybean producers, but a
wide network of actors in the animal feed and poultry value
chains.
• Soybean meal is the dominant protein supplement used in
poultry diets and is the standard to which alternative protein
sources are generally held against, and the main input cost to
the poultry cost is animal feed.
• Other cited benefits for the integration of small-scale farmers
into the soybean value chain are for its agronomic and
nutritional attributes.

10. Ready markets
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• Expanding animal feed and poultry markets offer promise
to soybean producers in the form o increased local
demand
• However, although emergence of informal traders means
farmers have access to markets locally,
• Supply of soybean to processors is largely driven by
informal traders, due to high transaction costs (lack of
capital to pay upon delivery), movement of grain is
adversely affected
• Farmers carry most of risk in these buyer-driven
transactions and are unable to negotiate.
• Cargill, one of the biggest buyers of soybeans has pulled
out of Mozambique, and stopped operations.

11. What does this mean for small-scale
farmers?
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• The impacts of these investments are differentiated
• The displacement of farmers from farm land, water
sources, other natural resources and grazing land
has diminished their food growing capacity.
• The main channel through which cash crops affect
food security is through income, farmer’s vulnerable
to price changes
• Farmers carry largest risk in the buyer-driven value
chains

12. Changing consumption patterns
• The main meals remain starch-based with mainly xima and
vegetables being consumed for lunch and supper, with meat
protein rarely consumed in most households.
• Decreasing crop and food diversity among small-scale farmers.,
coupled with the disappearance of indigenous and traditional
crops due to increasing use of herbicides means that households
are increasingly relying on markets for meeting household food
needs
• Soya is slowly affecting what is being served on the plate
• Emerging local markets for soy-based food: A group of women are
processing soya locally and producing soya milk. There is also a
new vibrant market for soy bread rolls in the villages in the
district.
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13. Big farms, big problems
• Access to quality seed locally is a challenge for large-scale farmers
• In the 2015/2016 production cycle,, AgroMoz reported an output of 1.7
tons per hectare which is less than their target of 2.4 tons and less than
what is being produced by some emerging small-scale farmers in Gurue.
– In 2015, small-scale farmers, those producing on 0.1 to 15 hectares
in their differentiated nature, produced 21, 490 tonnes of soybean
in total output compared to 11, 947 tonnes by the large commercial
farms.
• In 2016/2017 production cycle the lare-scale farms used seed imported
from Brazil and have now improved their yield, reaching 2.4-2.7
tonnes/h
• Large-scale commercial farms are competing directly with small-scale
farmers for markets, operating without production-marketing contracts
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14. Conclusion
• Soybean production among small-scale farmers has been driven mainly by
NGO programs that promote soybeans as a cash and human nutrition crop
• Green revolution technologies are prioritised across all support mechanism
and undermine socio-cultural and environmental dynamics that influence
small-scale farmer’s production practices
• The impacts are differentiated as there are losers and winners, those
struggling to access opportunities and those exploiting new opportunities to
their benefits
• The collapse of farmers cooperatives/associations following displacement from
farmland means that small-scale farmers are competing with the large-scale
commercial farms in the same commodity markets without any form of
bargaining powe
• The displacement of farmers from farm land, water sources, natural resources
and grazing land has diminished their food growing capacity. This has left many
to source food from the market yet with little cash income.
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15. Thank You
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