- Home
- /
- Chapter 5 Making sustainable, healthy diets accessible to all: markets, trade and protecting the foods already produced
Key messages
Year-round access to sustainable, healthy diets means all consumers being able to obtain the nutrient-rich foods needed to maintain an active healthy life. Since most citizens around the world do not produce what they eat, policy instruments relating to markets and cross-border food trade, as well as reduction of food loss and waste, are of growing importance for governments seeking to support healthy diets. Specific actions include:
- Using trade policy levers more effectively to achieve the goal of sustainable, healthy diets. While not usually designed to achieve health, nutrition, or environmental goals, trade mechanisms present a substantial opportunity. Many instruments relating to trade can help shift the menu of foods available domestically as well as their relative prices, including formal trade agreements, appropriate tariffs, and food safety regulations.
- Resisting the imposition of export restrictions at times of sharp food price spikes. Governments should instead be lowering tariffs and Value Added Tax (VAT) to encourage trade flows. Protectionist trade policies are increasingly acknowledged to have serious consequences for food and nutrition security.
Food trade helps manage price volatility and risks stemming from financial crises, pandemics or shocks associated with climate change. The export of nutrient-rich foods is not necessarily undesirable and should be considered in the overall context of the nutrient value and affordability of foods available to domestic consumers via own production and imports.
- Supporting investments in the infrastructure needed to optimise food value chains. Strategies will be needed to ‘feed the cities’, especially where urban populations continue to grow relative to rural settings. Substantial investments in infrastructure will be important to move food (particularly perishable nutrient-rich foods) from rural to urban markets.
- Generating employment across the food system beyond agriculture. Adding value to food through processing, packaging, and handling is a major potential source of job creation in rural economies in LMICs, and Africa in particular. It is also crucial for developing manufacturing sectors, as well as helping to make nutrient- rich foods available at locations more distant from their place of production.
- Significantly reducing loss and waste to preserve nutrients in the value chain. Nutrients need to be retained in the food system for consumers to benefit. There is a wealth of potential innovations to be drawn upon by actors throughout the food chain. But the choice of where to act needs to take careful account of where in the food chain most losses of nutrients occur.
It is not enough for the world to produce the foods needed for sustainable, healthy diets. Those foods must be accessible to all people, which means bridging the distance between producers and consumers through markets and trade. A range of actions are also needed to protect nutrients as they move across the food system, including measures to significantly cut food loss and waste. Investment in the value chain beyond production will create multiple additional benefits, including the creation of high-quality jobs, business opportunities to add value to food products, and growth in the technology sector through promoting technological innovation. Reducing food loss and waste will also help environmental sustainability in the food system by limiting the need to ‘grow food twice’.
5.1 The importance of markets and trade for sustainable, healthy diets
Since most people around the world do not produce the food they eat, local and global trade will remain important for moving food from where it is produced to where it can be consumed. Moving food across borders enables hundreds of millions of people to eat foods not grown in their own countries or regions. 1
For example, in Kenya and Zimbabwe, maize is an important source of calories. While attempts are being made to enhance domestic productivity in maize, both countries depend on imports for roughly 27% of their domestic maize needs.
This is feasible when regional and global supply is high and prices are relatively low, but becomes a challenge when supply dwindles and prices rise sharply. 2 A more extreme example is Singapore, which was listed as the world’s most food secure country in 2018 despite importing over 90% of its food that year. 3
International trade in food is also essential to support access to food-based nutrients not available within a particular country. 4 It follows therefore that policy instruments relating to markets and cross-border food trade must be critically important for governments that seek to enhance diets for all individuals. 5 This includes active negotiation of trade agreements, use of appropriate tariffs, ensuring adherence to food safety regulations, and maintaining commitments made to unrestricted flows of commodities during times of crisis.
However, professionals and analysts concentrating on trade mechanisms often overlook the role of trade in influencing dietary patterns. Improving diets through trade policy is not straightforward given the highly political nature of trade agendas and their underlying economic objectives. 6 7 8 Not all trade has wholly positive benefits, as outlined in the Global Panel’s policy brief on rethinking trade policies to support healthier diets. 9 While the movement of food across borders influences the range of foods which are available in a given country, sometimes it does so at the expense of local producers and traditional food systems. 10 11 Also, when imports such as sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) and highly processed foods become relatively less costly than local nutrient-rich foods, increases in consumption of the former can adversely affect human health and, in time, add to the burden on healthcare systems 12 13 14 (see Chapter 2).
Trade policy instruments should be part of any government’s toolkit for improving diet quality for their populations. Given the scale and devastating impact of malnutrition, it is imperative that no policy tool to address sub-optimal diets is overlooked.
5.2 Facilitators of food markets and trade
1 Global trends in food trade – past, present, and future
During the past 50 years or so, trade in food has increased eight- fold, while global production has trebled. 17 18 Across the world today, for every 100kg of food produced, 17kg of food is traded internationally, increasing to 50kg and 56kg for nuts and oils respectively. 19 Figure 5.1 shows the relative growth in food import and export values between 1993 and 2016. Growth in exports was greatest in regions with the highest levels of undernutrition: South Asia, sub-Saharan Africa, and Latin America, Central America, and the Caribbean.
Notwithstanding a slow-down in trade liberalisation over the past few years, food-related tariffs have fallen globally, and many countries have reduced trade-distorting producer support.
LMICs in particular have benefited, as their importance as both suppliers and markets for agricultural products has grown (see Figure 5.2). For example, the new African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), which covers 54 of the 55 African Union nations, is expected to boost intra-African trade by 52% by 2022 20 as members remove tariffs from 90% of goods, allowing free access to commodities, goods, and services across the continent.
The pace of agricultural policy reform has slowed in most OECD countries, in part as a result of the food price crises of 2007/08 and 2011/12, which led to a de facto reversal of prior commitments towards multilateral agreements supporting open food trade and price liberalisation. For example, according to the
OECD’s Agricultural Policy Monitoring and Evaluation report of 2019: “Little progress has been seen this decade in reforming agricultural support policies. Many agricultural policies continue to distort farm production and trade decisions and do not effectively target stated government objectives.” 21
More recently, the challenges posed by the coronavirus pandemic have raised further questions about reliance on international markets, both for food imports and for agricultural exports. International demand for specialist foods (e.g. shrimp, lobster) fell abruptly as restaurants closed in one country after another, and logistical problems with labour-mobility hampered harvesting, processing and transportation. 22 Hoarding behaviour, along with trade restrictions imposed by some governments, led to concerns about food supplies despite high global food stocks. 23 For example, in response to the, pandemic, Honduras introduced export restrictions on red beans in early 2020. 24 25
Algeria imposed a ban on exports of flour, milk intended for children, some fresh fruits and vegetables, vegetable oil and tomato paste; 27 and Egypt imposed a ban on all pulses. 28These trade-restricting policy reactions risked heightening fears about the accessibility of food on global markets, as in the 2007/2008 food price crisis. Low-income families around the world, and low-income food deficit countries, rely on the continued flow of goods and services. Closing these off translates into accentuated hardships, particularly in many LMICs.
Looking beyond the pandemic and the likely economic impacts that will follow, international trade in food is set to grow in importance in the decades ahead. This is due to a combination of population growth, rising incomes, climate change, and growing environmental degradation affecting food systems. 29 In particular, substantial population increases are projected to occur at lower latitudes (see Chapter 3), just as some food production will tend to shift to higher latitudes, driven by changing climatic and weather patterns. 30
Trade will represent an important mechanism to address this growing mismatch, and nutrient-rich perishable foods will need to move around the world in all seasons. Seasonal and inter-annual variability in local food supplies, along with rising incomes, already lead to a growing demand for foods that often have to be sourced from outside a country’s borders. Trade, therefore, plays a key role in determining the quantity of foods available, their relative prices, and thus the quality of diets that rely on market purchases. Yet, because of the highly political nature of trade agendas, and their underlying economic objectives, most policymakers have tended to ignore the potential role of trade mechanisms in relation to improving diets and nutrition. 31
That said, in a positive development, the Deputy Director General of the World Trade Organization (WTO) recently called for a major updating of the WTO Rulebook for Agriculture to finally secure a more effective multilateral food trading system that supports “ways of reducing waste, improving productivity, and limiting negative impacts on the environment”. 32 Much more empirical evidence is needed to better understand the trade-offs in terms of economic and environmental impacts of global trade versus reliance on local domestic production, but recognition by the world’s leading trade body of its potential role in supporting agriculture and environmental agendas is encouraging.
5.2.2 Developing domestic and regional markets
Within LMICs there continues to be an important focus on developing domestic markets and trade with close neighbours. Both are helped by traditional investment in rural road infrastructure. Studies in Nepal, for example, have shown a close link between child growth and proximity to road infrastructure, particularly where the latter provides access not just to food markets but also to farm inputs, health services and nutrition information. 33 But trade also requires investments to expand access to electricity, to develop agricultural input markets, and reduce border transaction costs.
A recent study of the potential impacts of agricultural growth on 14 African countries found that increased investment in the farming sector generated substantial benefits: it led to higher overall employment (in countries such as Ethiopia, Tanzania, Kenya, Nigeria and Egypt) and reduced gender disparities in labour participation. In eight of the countries considered, female employment increased more than male employment largely because of women’s traditionally significant role in food system activities. 34 Many employment benefits from agriculture are also boosted via investment in infrastructure. And increasing investments in food markets and trade networks not only provide new employment opportunities and income streams, but can also play an important role in enhancing the efficiency of transactions, thereby reducing costs.
Regional trade agreements (e.g. the new AfCFTA, MERCOSUR, and the new Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP-11)) are also increasingly important for the food security of participating countries (see Box 5.1). There is much to be gained from supporting the implementation of national government commitments to regional strategies, such as Africa’s Malabo Declaration on Accelerated Agricultural Growth. This was signed in 2014 and seeks to double agricultural productivity and triple intra-African trade in agricultural commodities and services by 2025 through harnessing “market and trade opportunities, locally, regionally and internationally”. 35 Development partners concerned with promoting agriculture and increased participation of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in food production, trade, retail and services, need to support such national commitments and the actions that flow from them. To date, this agenda has not featured prominently on most donor priorities.
Overall, food markets have been evolving to respond better to shifting demand for higher quality and diversity in products, but much more needs to be done. In this context, a number of challenges have been identified by African countries
as constraining the further development of their markets. These include:
- Degraded and congested wholesale markets, affecting transaction efficiency in small cities and rural towns close to farms (lessons from China’s connectivity strategies of the 1990s are relevant here);
- Poor road and other infrastructure quality, which limits the effective marketing of food, raising costs, losses, and hence consumer prices;
- Corruption in the governance of roads and the movement of supplies, and associated transaction costs;
- High cost of fuel and uneven access to it, which affects the efficiency of supply chains. This requires investment in fuel delivery infrastructure, as well as policies to manage supply and price uncertainty;
- Lack of knowledge and training of traders and hauliers, which leads to accident-related food losses, food contamination, and lack of quality control and protection; and
- Constraints on access to vehicles, equipment and machinery; most lorries and cooling equipment in Africa are imported.36
Many rural areas remain under-served in terms of flows of information, financing, and products.
There is considerable scope to learn from, and replicate, examples of effective public sector engagement with private actors in domestic markets.
In Uganda, for example, the government has capitalised on under-used warehousing left over from the parastatal era, and has made storage facilities available to the Uganda Grain Traders Ltd – a company formed by 16 national grain trading companies – to coordinate processing, warehousing, and quality control for products destined for export markets. 37 Similarly, there are examples of public-private partnerships creating viable cold chains.
These have been used to overcome high start-up costs and are aiming to optimise the shelf-life of perishable fruits and vegetables. Two examples are Kenya’s fresh fruit and vegetable terminal, and Ghana’s cold storage facilities at the main port, each financed partly by government, but privately managed. 38
5.3 Leveraging markets and trade for improving food access
Trade mechanisms are not traditionally designed to achieve nutrition, health, or environmental goals. While this has been a missed opportunity in the past, it presents multiple opportunities for the future. In particular, there are a wide range of trade policy tools available to LMICs to leverage nutrition gains through enhancing markets (see Figure 5.3). These can support greater productivity in agriculture, profitable activities by SMEs across the entire food system, and access by all people to the range of foods needed to support healthy diets. 40 41
The portfolio of potential policy instruments includes tariffs and non-tariff trade policies on food and other agricultural commodities, producer subsidies (lowering input costs or supporting product prices), support for food processors, and policies that involve income support to custodians of the rural environment (direct payments not linked to production).
No single approach fits every national circumstance in all developmental contexts. However, it has been shown that in most countries, economic growth has involved leveraging agriculture to generate not just outputs but also to raise demand for non-agricultural services and products, and hence employment growth outside of agriculture.42 43
The most successful examples of agricultural support for employment, government revenue growth and income distributions have occurred where food policies were defined and implemented while taking close account of how food system interventions fitted into the broader economic and social policy environment. 44 This requires selecting policy levers that specifically address market failures which disadvantage the agricultural sector relative to the rest of the economy.Also, appropriate actions in the middle ground of food sector operations can also be important in enabling the sector to align producer interests more closely with demand.
Looking ahead, market efficiencies will need to be framed both by the production of staple grains and by adding value across a wider range of nutrient-rich foods. Staple foods will continue to be important in tackling hunger, but nutrient-rich foods will be crucial in the broader aim of ensuring access to sustainable, healthy diets for everyone. Given the wide range of possible policy options in this area, the following sections highlight some examples which will help drive the food system transition set out in Chapter 1.
5.3.1 Long-distance and local supply chains must align as part of sustainable food systems
A concern for some people is the long-distance transport of food, which is often assumed to be associated with large carbon emissions.
Especially in high-income countries, this view often leads to a preference for ‘locally’ or ‘regionally’ produced food, as this is believed to be more climate-friendly. 45 However, a study of GHG emissions associated with food system activities in the US showed that transportation accounts for just 5%, compared with 68% for producing and processing foods, and 25% for marketing and retail (see Figure 5.4). 46 More work along those lines is needed, especially in LMICs.
More generally, the FAO has found that when comparing ‘local’ and ‘non-local’ foods in terms of GHG emissions, the least detrimental effect on the environment depends on many factors: the food product, the type of farm operation, transport, season, and the scale of production. 47 Thus, in some cases, it is possible that the adoption of comparatively low-emission technologies in primary production phases could compensate for emissions from ‘long-distance’ value chains.
Such studies underline the need for policymakers to base decisions on robust evidence and to take a nuanced look across the entire food chain. This conclusion is supported by research concerning food production in Kenya. 48 When supplying cabbages to local supermarkets, it was found that farmers used roughly double the amount of chemical inputs per unit of output that would otherwise be used when producing cabbage for their own consumption. If supplying formal retail outlets with blemish-free standardised products necessitates more chemical fertilisers/herbicides/pesticides and fossil energy per unit of output, the local GHG emissions could potentially be higher overall than those associated with other more efficient value chains that might operate over longer distances.
5.3.2 Support urban-rural value chains
All governments will need effective strategies to ‘feed the cities’. It has been estimated that by 2018, 55% of the world’s population lived in urban environments, 50 yet in 2016 urban residents already consumed roughly 70% of the entire world’s food supply. This was because they have higher incomes relative to rural households, and tend to consume higher amounts of food per capita. 51 Roughly 50% of urban dwellers in low- and middle-income countries live in towns of less than half a million inhabitants. These concentrations of people serve as nodes in extensive networks which link rural markets to urban retail, as well as urban inputs (seed, credit, etc.) to rural producers. 52 Figure 5.5, for example, shows how the value of food markets in rural and urban contexts could grow in sub-Saharan Africa between 2010 and 2030. While Africa’s population will remain relatively more rural than any other continent well into the 21st century, the growth of urban areas will be particularly large. In many other parts of the world, populations will have already become predominantly urban. This carries important implications for strategies to support adequate food sourcing.
Urban agriculture will have some potential to address local demand, as will novel forms of food production (including hydroponics, lab-grown proteins, insect farms, etc.).
But large investments in infrastructure will be needed to move food from rural settings to urban dwellers. According to the FAO:
“Agriculture and family farming in particular, must be more firmly linked to the broader rural and urban economy. This can be done by developing agro-industries and setting up infrastructure to connect rural areas, small cities and towns.” 53
At the same time, the producer-to-retail chain is largely conditioned by the nature of products moving through it. 54 For example, some foods may be highly perishable, while others can be stored over long periods. They may be seasonal or available year-round, concentrated geographically or widely available, or produced by many smallholders or a few large suppliers. In general, the more perishable the product, the more geographically concentrated are its suppliers, and those suppliers tend to be more narrowly concentrated in terms of the size of production units. There is also a greater likelihood that the product is procured directly by wholesalers or even retailers through vertical supply chains. The more a commodity is produced by many small producers, the more likely it is to be procured via traditional wholesale markets.
Control of vertical supply chains is typically associated with perishable nutrient-rich and higher-value foods, and these products are often associated with opportunities for applying new technologies and best practice innovations aimed at reducing food losses, protecting nutrients, and reducing emissions. Governments, especially those in LMICs, have an important role to play in determining geographically targeted investment strategies to support SME growth across the food sector in ways that promote sustainable food production and marketing across rural and urban networks, and secure consumer access.
5.3.3 Build and strengthen small- and medium-sized enterprise (SME) partnerships for enhanced diets
Most stakeholders working across the food system are private businesses, often referred to collectively as ‘the food industry’ 55 While governments play an important role in investing in agriculture R&D and infrastructure as well as regulating and monitoring food safety standards, food trade and more, it is food industry entities that generally produce, transport, process and sell food products. 56The many commercial actors working along the food supply chain therefore have very considerable potential to play a leading role in supporting public goals related to sustainable, healthy diets.
For example, it has been estimated that over 60% of all food consumed in sub-Saharan Africa is supplied via mainly domestic SMEs involved in the food sector. 58 SMEs are not well-defined, but they are generally classified as independent business or commercial entities having fewer than 250 employees, with those at the lower end (micro-enterprises) employing fewer than 10 people. 59 60 The types of activity pursued by SMEs depends on their place in the food chain, be it agribusinesses supporting food production, transport or processing, to retail and food service (see Figure 5.6).
The share of national GDP contributed by actors in the agri-food system is estimated to range from 40-50% in low-income countries across Africa (where SMEs account for up to 90% of all businesses in processing, transportation and trade as well as food services), 61
to around 30% or less in lower-middle income countries such as Vietnam, Bangladesh and Indonesia (see Figure 5.7). 62
Governments can play a key role in supporting and nurturing SMEs. In particular, a lack of road infrastructure, cold storage facilities, and electrification can negatively affect the development and quality of food value chains mid-stream (between farm and fork) as well as the efficiency, costs and profitability of smallholder producers and SMEs. By improving access to all forms of infrastructure, as well as enhanced warehousing, water, and financing (particularly credit), even relatively small-scale food sector stakeholders can take on significantly more important roles by connecting producers to markets, markets to processors and retailers, and rural to urban markets.
5.3.4 Develop partnerships with supermarkets
Where conditions are conducive, LMICs are seeing a rapid growth in the number and reach of domestic and regional food retail companies alongside the appearance of global food corporations. 64 The growth of franchised retail food outlets has greatly expanded as part of the ongoing global shift in where people procure most of their food (the ‘supermarket revolution’). 65 The penetration of supermarkets (which often count as SMEs in LMICs) is accelerating rapidly in both rural and urban settings. 66 67 For example, Africa’s largest food retailer (South Africa-based ‘Shoprite’) today operates more than 2,800 outlets in 15 African countries and aspires to be “Africa’s most accessible and affordable food retailer”. 68
Notwithstanding regional variation, 69 the reach of supermarkets continues to expand around the world, bringing profound changes in terms of food prices, processing levels, packaging sizes, and marketing. 70 71 72 In addition to a higher standard of fresh foods, supermarkets offer a wide variety of processed and highly processed foods and drinks, often in larger packaging sizes and combined with special promotional campaigns. 73 Analysing the effects of supermarkets on diets and nutrition is not straightforward, because of many possible confounding factors which need to be controlled for. But the limited evidence that is now emerging suggests that their effect is mixed.
A study from Guatemala shows that buying food in supermarkets, as opposed to traditional retail outlets, is associated with higher body mass index (BMI) and a higher likelihood of being overweight in adults, after controlling for household income, education, and other confounding factors. 74 Similar results were also obtained in studies of urban spending in Kenya. 75 76 Here, health data collected for the same households and individuals suggest that buying food in supermarkets is also associated with a higher prevalence of nutrition-related NCDs, such as diabetes and metabolic syndrome. 77 Also, supermarket shoppers often consume more highly processed foods, including semi-processed items as well as ultra-processed foods and snacks. 78 79 80 81
The data from Kenya show different effects in the case of children and adolescents. While supermarket shopping appears to be associated with weight gain in adults, effects of supermarkets on childhood obesity have not been identified. Recent studies with data from Kenya and Zambia suggest that supermarket shopping may contribute to gains in diet diversity and in child height (i.e. reduced stunting). 82 83 Recent country- wide analysis of aggregated data also supports the idea that the spread of supermarkets in developing countries may help to reduce child stunting in certain situations, and equally, does not reveal significant effects of supermarkets on childhood obesity. 84 Another study with micro-level data from urban Indonesia also failed to establish a significant relationship between supermarket shopping and childhood obesity, although a significant effect of supermarkets on child overweight was found in a subsample of wealthier households. 85
Overall, these findings imply that the spread of supermarkets may help to reduce the prevalence of child stunting in urban as well as rural areas. In rural areas, part of the effect may also be attributable to higher incomes for smallholder producers, as recently reported in India where the average effect of supermarket purchasing on farmgate prices was around 20%. 86
This premium is due to fewer intermediaries and reduced transactions costs. But there are dangers in terms of a rapid shift from stunting as the primary nutrition concern, towards obesity and NCDs linked to supermarket retailing of ultra-processed packaged foods.
For lower-income families, food processing, enhanced preservation of perishables and lower prices characteristic of many supermarket foods can support regular consumption of certain nutrient-rich foods that are otherwise less accessible. But more generally, the findings show that the effects of supermarkets on people’s diets are complex and context-specific, as supermarkets are rarely the only source of food purchases.
Given the potential for supermarkets to improve people’s access to food calories, diversity, safety and quality, they offer the opportunity for partnership with the public sector in pursuing diet-related goals. 87 88 89 Governments in LMICs should engage strategically with supermarkets to explore ways in which public diet-quality agendas can align with the supermarkets’ own commercial strategies. Joint target-setting, transparency of data on inputs and impacts, and accountability (for outcomes) would all be essential principles underpinning engagement.
Already in Europe, North America, and New Zealand there are examples of community-focused supermarket chains promoting consumption of fresh nutrient-rich foods (e.g. free offerings in the grocery aisle, lower pricing of blemished but sound produce, improved nutrition information, etc.). There have also been positive examples of engagement with commercial retailer as part of community-wide initiatives seeking to tackle child obesity in the USA. 90
5.3.5 Support employment across the entire food system
Chapter 4 highlighted the substantial opportunities in LMICs in terms of job creation in the food production sector. However, there is also considerable potential for jobs to be created throughout food value chains. According to the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) recent assessment of African competitiveness, ‘unlocking’ Africa’s agricultural potential requires efforts that “sustainably transform the sector from low-productivity small farms (producing mainly for household local consumption) into larger farms and more intensive agro-processing activities”. 91
Adding value to food through processing, packaging, and handling can yield multiple benefits. An assessment of the role played in the production, processing and retail segments of the fruits and vegetables value chain by SMEs in Africa found that small entities (working on two to 20 ha) are responsible for the largest share of total output. The same study concluded that SMEs involved in fruit and vegetable processing make up almost half of the activity in that segment, but very little in retail (see Figure 5.8). 92
It is important to note that returns to labour in agri-food activities post-farmgate are higher in most African countries that returns to labour on the farm, whether its one’s own farm or wages for farm labour (see Table 5.1). 93 This suggests that the conventional narrow view that relatively small businesses mainly play a role in food processing or retail should be reconsidered.
SMEs of various kinds are important actors in the production and processing value chain arenas, and require appropriate support (e.g. access to finance, information, and markets) to enhance and expand their activities.
The Partnership for Inclusive Agricultural Transformation in Africa (PIATA) is an example of a public-private partner focused on driving investments in economic activity across food value chains. It involves deliberate engagement with businesses to build sustainable systems. Launched in 2017 with 11 priority countries , this multi-donor activity includes support for expanded access to national and regional agricultural markets. 97 The food system as a whole is a major potential source of job creation in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, particularly in the region’s food processing and value-added domains. Already today, the food sector is the world’s largest employer, with more than two billion people working in it. 98 That can grow, especially in parts of the world with a rapidly growing and youthful population seeking employment.
There are also substantial opportunities for job creation associated with making nutrient-rich foods available at locations more distant from their place of production. For example, a survey of 300 traders in Zambia found that informal food markets (typically open air) offer important opportunities for livelihoods and income generation, particularly for women on low incomes, and young people. 99
These markets also continue to play a critical role in linking poorer consumers with markets for fruits, vegetables, dairy and meat products. But their informal nature means that traders face many hurdles. For example, gaining access to capital or credit may be difficult. Traders also suffer high levels of spoilage because of limited access to cold storage facilities and growing competition from sellers of imported packaged foods.
Overcoming such constraints and generating new job opportunities requires what the World Economic Forum has called “an enabling environment for agro-processing”. 100 This should include:
- Improving all forms of infrastructure (transport, water and sanitation, electricity, communications, and irrigation) to support competitive agri-processing firms;
- Setting appropriate standards and regulations for food quality, safety, and trade to facilitate export competitiveness; and
- Promoting vertical linkages among enterprises across the food system to reduce risks of mismatched supply and demand, and to promote regular income flows. 101
Large shifts in jobs downstream from the production domain are typical as part of the economic transition of industrialising countries around the world. 102 In a high-income setting like the United States, employment in farming (production level work) has remained broadly static from 1990 to 2020, as have jobs in food manufacturing; indeed, employment in agriculture in the US rose slightly from around 2.5 million in 2005 to 2.7 million in 2016. 103 But service jobs in the US relating to food (mainly retail, but also delivery) have expanded considerably over those years, pointing to employment in the post-production phases of the food system as the locus of most growth in countries where incomes are high or growing fast (see Figure 5.9).
This suggests potential for increasing food-related employment in the food system beyond the farmgate, from which LMICs could benefit hugely. 104 According to analysis from four lower-income countries in Asia and six African countries, Asia has a larger share of wage earners in the post-farm agri-food system than Africa (12% versus 5%, respectively). Africa, however, has a larger share of self- employed workers in the post-farm food sector (20%) compared with Asia (8%). In both regions, there is scope for growth in off- farm food sector employment and incomes. The trend globally is for faster employment growth in food-related activities off the farm compared with on-farm.
For example, farming in Brazil accounts for around half of employment in the food system, with food services and processing each making up about 25% of food- related jobs. 105 While off-farm work still accounts for only 9% of total food sector employment in Eastern and Southern Africa, the potential for expanding that share is strong.
For food sector job growth to occur, specific policies are needed in LMICs to ensure ‘associated agricultural jobs’ 106 – i.e. income-earning activities downstream of production. Evidence also suggests that the promotion of rural development and employment in these countries has focused mostly on farming activity, and the effects on rural incomes “are greater if indirect jobs associated with agricultural activity and post-production processing (e.g. manufacture of food products and beverages) are also included”. 107
A recent report from the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) on the emerging modern revolution in agri-food processing in sub-Saharan Africa highlights the increasing importance of the midstream of the food value chain to rural economies. Traders, truckers and processors constitute about 40% of the total gross value of food value chains across sub-Saharan Africa, generating a share that is as large as production on farms. 108 An estimated 80% of the midstream is comprised of SMEs that have already ‘taken off’. These are generating increasingly large income flows, and a fertile foundation for future investment. In other words, food processing and retail offer important growth potential in rural Africa.
To realise all of this potential, the public sector needs to find ways to stimulate business investments in the ‘middle’ of the food supply chain (after the farm, and up to and including retail) specifically to make the diverse (including fresh) foods needed for healthy diets accessible to all. In Kenya, the coronavirus crisis has led the Kenya Private Sector Alliance (KEPSA) to form a COVID-19 Business Response Committee that brought together business leaders, government decision makers and donor partners to protect jobs while ensuring food access under lock- down. 109 One partnership to emerge involved an online food order and delivery company called Jumia Food. This partnership has focused on increasing digital sales in Kenya, and on training other vendors in the basics of e-commerce, marketing, finance and sales. 110
Finally, a particular challenge for policymakers is to ensure that the processed products offer value addition for healthy diets rather than moving towards ultra-processing to produce foods
which are high in unhealthy fats, salt or sugar – especially since most of the associated economic activity in processing involves SMEs. One example of success comes from northern Senegal, where La Laiterie du Berger worked with pastoralist milk producers to strengthen the milk value chain by improving micronutrient content through commercial vitamin fortification, and enhanced food safety controls. 111
5.4 Promote innovation and employment in cutting food loss and waste
Reducing food loss and waste needs to be a central component of the food system transition. Food that is neither lost nor wasted does not have to be ‘grown twice’ 112, Nor does its production, storage and marketing consume double the energy consumption and emit emissions twice over. In this sense, loss and waste are not issues relating just to production, but equally to the potential for preserving and distributing nutrients through the food value chain (making more of them accessible to more people), ensuring the environmental sustainability of food systems, and stimulating innovation and job creation.
Estimates of losses and waste in the food system (from production to human consumption) remain contentious, largely because there is a wide variation in results from individual studies and their methodologies. A common estimate is that losses and waste account for about 30% of the food produced globally. However, much lower and higher estimates also exist. A recent reassessment of FAO data reduced their earlier estimate of food losses by a factor of almost two. 113 Other analyses of post-purchase food waste suggested that levels are twice as high as thought previously. 114 While consumer-level food waste is a global problem, it starts to emerge as a serious threat to national food supplies when a food expenditure threshold of US$6.70/ capita per day is crossed. Tackling these particular inefficiencies (loss and waste) would contribute substantially to efficiency gains, amplifying the benefits of yield increases generated by changing agricultural practices while also cutting the volume of food needing to be ‘grown twice’.
The vital importance of reducing loss and waste is clear when considering future projections. One modelling scenario estimated that global food loss and waste (by weight) would increase by roughly 37% between 2010 and 2030 (assuming 30% food loss and waste projected forward in terms of population growth, rising incomes and changing urban consumption patterns), from 1.3 billion metric tonnes of food per year in 2010 to 1.8 billion metric tonnes.
Attention is growing to the “importance of post-harvest, processing and marketing activities in job and income creation, their role in feeding non- farmers, in nutrition and health, in the consumption of energy and resources, in loss and waste, in biodiversity and pollution.
From an environmental perspective, reducing food losses and waste contributes to reducing carbon, water and land footprints.
Those projected levels represent about a quarter of all food production needed in 2030, and a third of total consumption.117 Even if current loss and waste is ‘only’ around 20% globally (based on recent recalibration of estimates by FAO), the absolute losses would still exceed one billion metric tonnes by 2030. These figures are huge, and represent an additional strain on the world’s environmental system that is arguably both unnecessary and avoidable. 118 The following section discusses the challenges involved, and how they may be met.
5.4.1 Loss and waste through the value chain
Nutrients generated in the food system need to remain in the food system for individuals to benefit. It is therefore important that foods, once produced, remain fit for consumption until they reach the person who can eat them. Although the FAO has recently revised downward its widely-cited estimate of one third of all food produced being wasted globally to ‘only’ 20% 119 (14% food losses and 6% food waste 120 ), this issue remains a significant feature of current inefficient food systems with important implications for resource use over the long term.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report of 2019 on land issues linked to climate change estimated that 8–10% of total anthropogenic GHGs relate to loss and waste across the whole food system. 121
The disappearance of edible food between production and retail, and food discarded by retailers and those who make purchases, adds unnecessary additional pressure on the food system, on the natural resource base and on the climate. 122
Actions to reduce food loss and waste are needed at different points in the value chain depending on geographic location and commodity. Not all foods are equally perishable, nor are all food categories equally vulnerable to losses in production, processing, and through the value chain. In LMICs, substantial losses of fruits and vegetables occur on-farm, but poor post-harvest handling, transport and storage are also important drivers of the total ‘lost to the consumer’ component. Processing and retail activities contribute even more to these losses. 123
Many foods packaged and processed in bulk have longer shelf- lives and an ability to withstand challenging environmental conditions, such as high temperatures and humidity, contributing to ease of access. However, perishable nutrient- rich foods are typically at much greater risk due to inadequate protection, particularly in LMIC settings. For example, in 2015 high production-related food losses were associated globally with fruits and vegetables as well as roots and tubers, while cereals (typically processed and stored in bulk) showed relatively low production-related losses. 124
Meat and dairy products also had low production-related losses globally, arguably because these are very high-value commodities which engender greater efficiency and care in processing, packaging, storage and distribution. In contrast, consumer-level waste was highest in 2015 for cereals, but closely followed by fruits and vegetables and fish-related products.
Just as different amounts of food loss and waste occur in different settings, the same is true for specific nutrients. This is an important consideration where a population is already subject to deficiencies in certain nutrients. For example, in low- income countries, calcium and riboflavin leak from the system in almost equal amounts through losses and waste, but for vitamin A, the losses are closer to production practices than to post- consumer waste. In high-income countries, important losses of folate occur mostly in the production/processing domains.
Recent work using global data on 25 nutrients in 225 food categories for over 150 countries details the significant nutrient losses which can occur (see Table 5.2).
As a share of nutrients available for consumption, about 25% of available calories and protein are lost globally, roughly 10-15% of fats, and 18-41% of vitamins and minerals, including 23-33% of vitamin A, folate, calcium, iron and zinc. Reducing food loss and waste therefore has the potential to significantly improve diet quality.
Since different levels of loss and/or waste occur at various points in food value chains, there are many opportunities for the public and private sector to act together to achieve gains. But context matters. Globally, food losses (i.e. before consumption) are significantly greater than waste (i.e. at the point of consumption). For example, in the production of fruits and vegetables, Latin America and North America have the highest food losses relating to harvest, while sub-Saharan Africa has the lowest (see Figure 5.10). By contrast, losses are greatest in the post-harvest links of the value chain in sub-Saharan Africa, and smallest in Europe and North America. Much of the difference relates to storage facilities, transportation efficiencies, and climate. 126 At the consumer level, the highest food waste is found in high-income settings.
Finally, protecting nutrient-rich foods through the value chain can yield benefits other than the preservation of nutrients. The deterioration of perishable crops in warm and humid climates is exacerbated by lack of infrastructure, such as inappropriate storage facilities and poor roads, while the seasonality of some nutrient-rich crops, like mangoes or papaya, can also lead to unsaleable gluts.
A recent study in Malawi assessing the presence or absence of key foods in five major markets found that good storage capacity had a positive effect in moderating seasonal price fluctuations in the accessibility of beans and peas, making their year-round sale on market stalls possible. 129
That said, the same study also made it clear that the capacity of markets to ensure that perishable foods are always accessible remains somewhat limited due to a lack of storage infrastructure, weak coordination among producers and buyers, poor hygiene at informal markets (so-called ‘wet markets’), and poor understanding by wholesalers and stallholders of the nutritional value of foods on offer. 130
5.4.2 Innovations to cut food loss and waste
A renewed and intensive focus is needed on innovative technologies as well as best practices to promote efficiency gains along food chains. A scenario analysis undertaken by the Global Knowledge Initiative and the Rockefeller Foundation to better understand what innovations could reshape food systems over the next 20 years identified a set of 22 innovations (see Figure 5.11). 131 These would help to address post-harvest loss of food, but would also benefit smallholder farmers, improve supply chain efficiencies of perishable foods, and reduce environmental footprints on the farm and in the movement of food.
For example, activities such as dehydration, low-cost solar drying, micro cold transport, biodegradable coatings, and traceability can all be game-changers in enhancing efficiency and sustainability along food supply chains. 132 The study calls for investors, innovators, businesses and policymakers to take on new partnerships to bring these solutions to scale, and for local governments to facilitate the connectivity along value chains to impact the food system as a whole.
The World Economic Forum has also considered the role of technology innovation in enabling and accelerating improvements in food systems (see Figure 5.12). 133 Enhanced policies, investments in infrastructure, institutional capacity- building, individual behaviour change and improved resource management, and new technologies, can all work at scale to generate employment, new income streams and the kinds of diets needed to meet growing demand. For example, supply chain efficiency, including traceability, could reduce food losses by millions of tonnes each year. Enhanced value chain- based digital communications could lead to improved market efficiencies, reduced loss and waste, and better linkages between producers and food buyers. 134
Box 5.2: Pathways to multiple wins: reducing food loss and waste
In striving for sustainable, healthy diets for all, some actions that policymakers can take may be especially attractive since they offer pathways to multiple wins. Reducing food loss and waste is one such example, yielding many benefits in areas such as:
- The environment. Only having to grow food once means less pressure on land for growing crops and livestock, less demands on soils, and potentially less pollution due to fertiliser runoff and use of pesticides. Less land needed for growing food also means more land is available for carbon sequestration and biodiversity.
- Resource management. Having to grow less food means less fresh water is needed for crops and livestock, and there are lower fuel and infrastructure demands for transporting food. Energy demand could also be reduced, although here policymakers need to pay attention to the balance between savings and additional demands – for example for processing.
- Business efficiency. Reducing loss and waste as food moves through the food system will act to increase the efficiency of businesses, helping to make them more competitive.
- Affordability of foods. Increased business efficiency will act to drive down food prices. For high-nutrient foods, this could help the poorest in particular to access better diets, 136 leading to multiple benefits in terms of health and increased earning potential.
- Better food security. For poor smallholder producers, losses mean that less food is available for personal consumption. Women and young children are particularly vulnerable to these impacts of food losses as they are often less able to access appropriate technologies, infrastructure, storage facilities and markets.
Save Food: Global Initiative on Food Loss and Waste Reduction. 137 This major international initiative provides help and support for countries seeking to reduce food loss and
waste. The FAO and Messe Düsseldorf are collaborating with agencies, donors, financial institutions and business partners to provide support and assistance. Tools and methodologies have been developed for quantifying food losses and their causes. Solutions are being piloted in a number of countries, and support is being provided for capacity building, advisory and technical support.
Global Panel policy brief. 138 The Global Panel has separately issued advice and guidance for policymakers on preventing nutrient loss and waste across the food system (see Figure 5.13)
- Wood SA, Smith MR, Fanzo J, Remans R, Defries RS. Trade and the equitability of global food nutrient distribution. Nat Sustain. 2018.1(1):34–7.
- OECD/FAO. Agricultural Outlook 2018-2027. 2018. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1787/agr_outlook-2018-en
- Tortajada C, Hongzhou Z. Food Policy in Singapore. Ref Modul Food Sci. 2016.(March):0–7.
- Global Panel on Agriculture and Food Systems for Nutrition. Rethinking trade policies to support healthier diets. Policy Brief No. 13. London, UK; 2020.
- Global Panel on Agriculture and Food Systems for Nutrition. Rethinking trade policies to support healthier diets. Policy Brief No. 13. London, UK; 2020.
- Mozaffarian D, Angell SY, Lang T, Rivera JA. Role of government policy in nutrition-barriers to and opportunities for healthier eating. BMJ. 2018.361.
- Baker P, Friel S, Gleeson D, Thow AM, Labonte R. Trade and nutrition policy coherence: A framing analysis and Australian case study. Public Health Nutr. 2019.22(12):2329–37.
- Thow AM, Greenberg S, Hara M, Friel S, duToit A, Sanders D. Improving policy coherence for food security and nutrition in South Africa: a qualitative policy analysis. Food Secur. 2018.10(4):1105–30.
- Global Panel on Agriculture and Food Systems for Nutrition. Rethinking trade policies to support healthier diets. Policy Brief No. 13. London, UK; 2020.
- Sophia Huang. Chapter 4 Global Trade of Fruit and Vegetables and the Role of Consumer Demand. In: Corinna Hawkes, Chantal Blouin, Spencer Henson, Nick Drager LD, editor. Trade, Food, Diet and Health: Perspectives and Policy Options. 2015.
- Asche F, Bellemare MF, Roheim C, Smith MD, Tveteras S. Fair Enough? Food Security and the International Trade of Seafood. World Dev. 2015.67:151–60.
- Hawkes C. Uneven dietary development: Linking the policies and processes of globalization with the nutrition transition, obesity and diet-related chronic diseases. Global Health. 2006.2(1):4. Available from: http://globalizationandhealth.biomedcentral. com/articles 10.1186/1744-8603-2-4
- Stuckler D, McKee M, Ebrahim S, Basu S. Manufacturing Epidemics: The Role of Global Producers in Increased Consumption of Unhealthy Commodities Including Processed Foods, Alcohol, and Tobacco. PLoS Med. 2012.9(6).
- Schram A, Labonte R, Baker P, Friel S, Reeves A, Stuckler D. The role of trade and investment liberalization in the sugar-sweetened carbonated beverages market: A natural experiment contrasting Vietnam and the Philippines. Global Health. 2015.11(1):41.
- Global Panel on Agriculture and Food Systems for Nutrition. Rethinking trade policies to support healthier diets. Policy Brief No. 13. London, UK; 2020.
- Global Panel on Agriculture and Food Systems for Nutrition. Rethinking trade policies to support healthier diets. Policy Brief No. 13. London, UK; 2020.
- Global Panel on Agriculture and Food Systems for Nutrition. Rethinking trade policies to support healthier diets. Policy Brief No. 13. London, UK; 2020.
- Maletta HE. Towards the End of Hunger. 2016.
- Poore J, Nemecek T. Reducing food’s environmental impacts through producers and consumers. Science (80- ). 2018.360(6392):987–92.
- AfCFTA. About us – African Continental Free Trade Area [Internet]. 2020 [cited 2020 Jun 3]; Available from: https://www. africancfta.org/aboutus
- OECD. Agricultural Policy Monitoring and Evaluation 2019. Paris, France: OECD Publishing; 2019.
- Club of Mozambique. Coronavirus impact: Demand for Mozambican shrimp declines on international market [Internet]. 2020 [cited 2020 May 19]; Available from: https://clubofmozambique.com/news/coronavirus-impact-demand-for-mozambican-shrimp-declines-on-international-market-154871/
- Global Panel on Agriculture and Food Systems for Nutrition. COVID-19: Safeguarding food systems and promoting healthy diets.
- Honduras: Export ban on red beans in response to the COVID-19 outbreak [Internet]. 2020 [cited 2020 Jul 8]; Available from: https://www. globaltradealert.org/state-act/43664/honduras-export-ban-on-red-beans-in-response-to-the-covid-19-outbreak
- Gobierno prohíbe exportaciones de frijol rojo para garantizar abastecimiento en emergencia por coronavirus [Internet]. 2020 [cited 2020 Jul 8]; Available from: https://presidencia.gob.hn/index.php/sala-de-prensa/7140-gobierno-prohibe-exportaciones-de-frijol-rojo-para-garantizar-abastecimiento-en-emergencia-por-coronavirus
- OECD. The changing landscape of agricultural markets and trade: prospects for future reforms. OECD Food, Agriculture and Fisheries Papers, No. 118. Paris, France: OECD Publishing; 2019. https://doi. org/10.1787/7dec9074-en
- USAID, GAIN. COVID-19 –Agriculture Situation: Algeria. 2020.
- Egypt: Export ban on all kinds of legumes (COVID-19) [Internet]. Trade Alert. 2020 Mar [cited 2020 Jul 8]; Available from: https:// www.globaltradealert.org/intervention/78953/export-ban/egypt-export-ban-on-all-kinds-of-legumes-covid-19
- Schmidhuber J, Pound J, Qiao B. COVID-19: Channels of transmission to food and agriculture [Internet]. FAO. 2020 [cited 2020 Jun 3]. Available from: https://doi.org/10.4060/ca8430en
- Myers S, Frumkin H, editors. Planetary Health: Protecting Nature to Protect Ourselves. Washington, D.C.: Island Press; 2020
- Global Panel on Agriculture and Food Systems for Nutrition. Rethinking trade policies to support healthier diets. Policy Brief No. 13. London, UK; 2020.
- WTO. Speech – DDG Alan Wolff – DDG Wolff: It is time to update the WTO rulebook for agriculture [Internet]. 2020 [cited 2020 Jul 6]; Available from: https://www.wto. org/english/news_e/news20_e/ddgaw_18jan20_e.htm
- Thapa G, Shively G. A dose-response model of road development and child nutrition in Nepal. Res Transp Econ. 2018.70:112–24.
- Frija A, Chebil A, Mottaleb KA, Mason-D’Croz D, Dhehibi B. Agricultural growth and sex-disaggregated employment in Africa: Future perspectives under different investment scenarios. Glob Food Sec. 2020.24:100353.
- African Union Commission. Malabo declaration on accelerated agricultural growth and transformation for shared prosperity and improved livelihoods. Addis Ababa, Ethiopia; 2014.
- AGRA. Africa Agriculture Status Report. The Hidden Middle: A Quiet Revolution in the Private Sector Driving Agricultural Transformation. Nairobi, Kenya; 2019.
- World Bank. Growing Africa Unlocking the Potential of Agribusiness. Washington, DC; 2013.
- World Bank. Growing Africa Unlocking the Potential of Agribusiness. Washington, DC; 2013.
- Baliño S, Laborde D, Murphy S, Parent M, Smaller C, Traoré F. A Policy Taxonomy for Agricultural Transformation Policy taxonomy: agricultural transformation. IFPRI and IISD. 2019.
- Global Panel on Agriculture and Food Systems for Nutrition. Rethinking trade policies to support healthier diets. Policy Brief No. 13. London, UK; 2020.
- Baliño S, Laborde D, Murphy S, Parent M, Smaller C, Traoré F. A Policy Taxonomy for Agricultural Transformation Policy taxonomy: agricultural transformation. IFPRI and IISD. 2019.
- Timmer C. China and the World Food System. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University; 1981.
- Webb P, Block S. Support for agriculture during economic transformation: Impacts on poverty and undernutrition. Vol. 109, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 2012. p. 12309–14.
- Laborde D, Lallemant T, Mcdougal K, Smaller C, Traore F. Transforming Agriculture in Africa & Asia: What are the policy priorities? 2019.
- Heller MC, Keoleian GA. Greenhouse Gas Emission Estimates of U.S. Dietary Choices and Food Loss. J Ind Ecol. 2015.19(3):391–401.
- Boehm R, Wilde PE, Ver Ploeg M, Costello C, Cash SB. A Comprehensive Life Cycle Assessment of Greenhouse Gas Emissions from U.S. Household Food Choices. Food Policy. 2018.79:67–76.
- Edwards-Jones G, Milà i Canals L, Hounsome N, Truninger M, Koerber G, Hounsome B, et al. Testing the assertion that “local food is best”: the challenges of an evidence-based approach. Trends Food Sci Technol. 2008.19(5):265–74.
- Neven D, Odera MM, Reardon T, Wang H. Kenyan Supermarkets, Emerging Middle-Class Horticultural Farmers, and Employment Impacts on the Rural Poor. World Dev. 2009.37(11):1802–11.
- World Bank. Growing Africa Unlocking the Potential of Agribusiness. Washington, DC; 2013.
- United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs PD. World Urbanization Prospects 2018 Highlights. 2019.
- Bereuter D, Glickman D, Reardon TA. Growing Food for Growing Cities: Transforming food systems in an urbanizing world. 2016.
- Christiaensen L, Todo Y. Poverty reduction during the rural-urban transformation : the role of the missing middle. 2013. p. 1–43.
- FAO. The future of food and agriculture – Alternative pathways to 2050. Rome, Italy; 2018. Copyright held by FAO.
- Berdegué JA, Balsevich F, Flores L, Reardon T. Central American supermarkets’ private standards of quality and safety in procurement of fresh fruits and vegetables. Food Policy. 2005.30(3):254–69.
- Food industry enterprises encompass companies involved in agri-business, food and beverage manufacturers, food retailers (including supermarkets), food service providers, and industry trade associations. Food wholesalers, food distributors (including importers and exporters), and the advertising and marketing industry, are also influential private sector players in the food system.
- Global Panel on Agriculture and Food Systems for Nutrition. Improving diets in an era of food market transformation: Challenges and opportunities for engagement between the public and private sectors. Policy Brief No. 11. London, UK; 2018.
- Demmler KM. The Role of Small and Medium-sized Enterprises in Nutritious Food Supply Chains in Africa. Working Paper Series #2. [Internet]. 2020 [cited 2020 Jun 3]. Available from: https://doi. org/10.36072/wp.2
- AGRA. Africa Agriculture Status Report. The Hidden Middle: A Quiet Revolution in the Private Sector Driving Agricultural Transformation. Nairobi, Kenya; 2019.
- OECD. OECD Glossary of Statistical Terms – Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) Definition [Internet]. 2020 [cited 2020 Jun 3]; Available from: https://stats.oecd.org/glossary/detail.asp?ID=3123
- GAIN. Small and medium sized enterprise (SME) [Internet]. 2020 [cited 2020 Jun 3]; Available from: https://www.gainhealth.org/small-and-medium-sized-enterprise-sme
- International Finance Corporation. SME Initiatives [Internet]. World Bank Group. 2020 [cited 2020 Jun 3]; Available from: https://www.ifc. org/wps/wcm/connect/REGION__ EXT_Content/Regions/Sub-Saharan+Africa/Advisory+Services/SustainableBusiness/SME_Initiatives/
- james Thurlow. Measuring Agricultural Transformation [Internet]. PowerPoint presentation to USAID, Washington, D.C. 2020 [cited 2020 Jun 3]. Available from: https://www.slideshare.net/ifpri/aggdp-agemp-measuring-agricultural-transformation?qid=106d37c7-127f-4488-8f51-94edacd064c9&v=&b=&from_search=1
- IFPRI. Global Food Policy Report: Building inclusive food systems. 2020
- International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI). 2020 Global Food Policy Report: Building Inclusive Food Systems. 2020
- Liang Lu, Thomas Reardon. An Economic Model of the Evolution of Food Retail and Supply Chains from Traditional Shops to Supermarkets to E‐Commerce. Am J Agric Econ. 2018. Available from: https://onlinelibrary. wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1093/ajae/aay056
- Reardon T, Timmer CP, Barrett CB, Berdegué J. The Rise of Supermarkets in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Am J Agric Econ. 2003.85(5):1140–6. Available from: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.0092-5853.2003.00520.x
- Qaim M. Globalisation of Agrifood Systems and Sustainable Nutrition Proc Nutr Soc. 2017.76(1):12–21. Available from: doi:10.1017/S0029665116000598
- Shoprite Holdings Ltd. Results for the year ended 1st July 2018. Johannesburg, South Africa; 2018.
- FAO. The future of food and agriculture–Trends and challenges. 2017.
- Hawkes C. Dietary implications of supermarket development: A global perspective. Dev Policy Rev. 2008.26(6):657–92.
- Timmer CP. Do Supermarkets Change the Food Policy Agenda?World Dev. 2009.37(11):1812–9.
- Popkin BM. Nutrition, agriculture and the global food system in low and middle income countries. Food Policy. 2014.47:91–6.
- Popkin BM. Relationship Between Shifts in Food System Dynamics and Acceleration of the Global Nutrition Transition. Nutr Rev. 2017.75(2):73–82.
- Asfaw A. Does Supermarket Purchase Affect the Dietary Practices of Households? Some Empirical Evidence from Guatemala. Dev Policy Rev. 2008.26:227–43.
- Kimenju SC, Rischke R, Klasen S, Qaim M. Do supermarkets contribute to the obesity pandemic in developing countries? Public Health Nutr. 2015.18(17):3224–33
- Demmler KM, Ecker O, Qaim M. Supermarket Shopping and Nutritional Outcomes: A Panel Data Analysis for Urban Kenya. World Dev. 2018.102:292–303.
- Demmler KM, Klasen S, Nzuma JM, Qaim M. Supermarket purchase contributes to nutrition-related non-communicable diseases in urban Kenya. PLoS One. 2017.12(9).
- Kimenju SC, Rischke R, Klasen S, Qaim M. Do supermarkets contribute to the obesity pandemic in developing countries? Public Health Nutr. 2015.18(17):3224–33
- Demmler KM, Ecker O, Qaim M. Supermarket Shopping and Nutritional Outcomes: A Panel Data Analysis for Urban Kenya. World Dev. 2018.102:292–303.
- Demmler KM, Klasen S, Nzuma JM, Qaim M. Supermarket purchase contributes to nutrition-related non-communicable diseases in urban Kenya. PLoS One. 2017.12(9).
- Asfaw A. Does consumption of processed foods explain disparities in the body weight of individuals?The case of Guatemala. Health Econ. 2011.20(2):184–95.
- Debela BL, Demmler KM, Klasen S, Qaim M. Supermarket food purchases and child nutrition in Kenya. Glob Food Sec. 2019.25.
- Khonje, M.G., Ecker, O., Qaim, M. Effects of modern food retailers on adult and child diets and nutrition. Nutrients. 2020. 12, 1714.
- Kimenju SC, Qaim M. The nutrition transition and indicators of child malnutrition. Food Secur. 2016.8(3):571–83.
- Wendy J. Umberger, Xiaobo He, Nicholas Minot, Hery Toiba. Examining the Relationship between the Use of Supermarkets and Over-nutrition in Indonesia. Am J Agric Econ. 2015.97(2):510–25. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1093/ajae/aau111
- Nuthalapati CSR, Sutradhar R, Reardon T, Qaim M. Supermarket procurement and farmgate prices in India. World Dev. 2020.134. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1016/j. worlddev.2020.105034
- Debela BL, Demmler KM, Klasen S, Qaim M. Supermarket food purchases and child nutrition in Kenya. Glob Food Sec. 2019.25.
- Sophie Tessier, Pierre Traissac, Bernard Maire, Nicolas Bricas, Sabrina Eymard-Duvernay, Jalila El Ati FD. Regular Users of Supermarkets in Greater Tunis Have a Slightly Improved Diet Quality. J Nutr. 2008.138(4):768–74.
- Rischke R, Kimenju SC, Klasen S, Qaim M. Supermarkets and food consumption patterns: The case of small towns in Kenya. Food Policy. 2015.52:9–21.
- IPPC. Climate Change and Land: an IPCC special report on climate change, desertification, land degradation, sustainable land management, food security, and greenhouse gas fluxes in terrestrial ecosystems [P.R. Shukla, J. Skea, E. Calvo Buendia, V. Masson-Delmot. 2019
- World Economic Forum. The Africa Competitiveness Report 2017: Addressing Africa’s Demographic Dividend. 2017.
- Demmler KM. The Role of Small and Medium-sized Enterprises in Nutritious Food Supply Chains in Africa. Working Paper Series #2. [Internet]. 2020 [cited 2020 Jun 3]. Available from: https://doi. org/10.36072/wp.2
- Demmler KM. The Role of Small and Medium-sized Enterprises in Nutritious Food Supply Chains in Africa. Working Paper Series #2. [Internet]. 2020 [cited 2020 Jun 3]. Available from: https://doi. org/10.36072/wp.2
- Demmler KM. The Role of Small and Medium-sized Enterprises in Nutritious Food Supply Chains in Africa. Working Paper Series #2. [Internet]. 2020 [cited 2020Jun 3]. Available from: https://doi. org/10.36072/wp.2
- AGRA. Africa Agriculture Status Report. The Hidden Middle: A Quiet Revolution in the Private Sector Driving Agricultural Transformation. Nairobi, Kenya; 2019.
- Will Masters. Jobs in agriculture and the food system [Internet]. Economics for Food and Nutrition Policy. 2019 [cited 2020 Jul 23]; Available from: https://sites.tufts.edu/foodecon/2019/01/employment-in-the-food-system/
- AGRA. Partnership For Inclusive Agricultural Transformation In Africa (PIATA) – AGRA [Internet]. [cited 2020 Jun 4]; Available from: https://agra.org/piata/
- ILOSTAT. Employment by sector. January 2019. 2019.
- Mwango M, Kaliba M, Chirwa M, Guarin A. Informal food markets in Zambia: Perspectives from vendors , consumers and policymakers in Lusaka and Kitwe. 2019.
- World Economic Forum. The Africa Competitiveness Report 2017: Addressing Africa’s Demographic Dividend. 2017.
- World Economic Forum. The Africa Competitiveness Report 2017: Addressing Africa’s Demographic Dividend. 2017.
- Webb P, Block S. Support for agriculture during economic transformation: Impacts on poverty and undernutrition. Vol. 109, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 2012. p. 12309–14.
- United States Agriculture Employment | Moody’s Analytics [Internet]. [cited 2020 Jun 4]; Available from: https://www.economy.com/united-states/agriculture-employment
- International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI). 2020 Global Food Policy Report: Building Inclusive Food Systems. 2020
- The Future of Food: Shaping the Food System to Deliver Jobs [Internet]. World Bank. [cited 2020 Jul 6]; Available from: https://www. worldbank.org/en/topic/agriculture/publication/the-future-of-food-shaping-the-food-system-to-deliver-jobs
- Garibaldi LA, Pérez-Méndez N. Positive outcomes between crop diversity and agricultural employment worldwide. Ecol Econ. 2019.164:106358.
- Garibaldi LA, Pérez-Méndez N. Positive outcomes between crop diversity and agricultural employment worldwide. Ecol Econ. 2019.164:106358.
- AGRA. Africa Agriculture Status Report. The Hidden Middle: A Quiet Revolution in the Private Sector Driving Agricultural Transformation. Nairobi, Kenya; 2019.
- KEPSA. Private Sector – Government partnership in response to COVID-19 pandemic [Internet]. 2020 [cited 2020 Jun 4]; Available from: https://kepsa.or.ke/private-sector-government-partnership-in-response-to-covid-19-pandemic/
- Roberto M. COVID-19: KEPSA, Jumia to train Kenyan businesses to sell goods online [Internet]. 2020 [cited 2020 Jun 4]; Available from: https://www.msn.com/en-xl/africa/other/covid-19-kepsa-jumia-to-train-kenyan-businesses-to-sell-goods-online/ar-BB13V69f
- Le Port A, Bernard T, Hidrobo M, Birba O, Rawat R, Ruel MT. Delivery of iron-fortified yoghurt, through a dairy value chain program, increases hemoglobin concentration among children 24 to 59 months old in Northern Senegal: A cluster-randomized control trial. PLoS One. 2017.12(2). Available from: https://dx.plos.org/10.1371/journal. pone.0172198
- The amount lost somewhere in the system, that has to be ‘grown again’ to meet demand.
- Alexander P, Brown C, Arneth A, Finnigan J, Moran D, Rounsevell MDA. Losses, inefficiencies and waste in the global food system. Agric Syst. 2017.153:190–200.
- Verma M van den B, de Vreede L, Achterbosch T, Rutten MM. Consumers discard a lot more food than widely believed: Estimates of global food waste using an energy gap approach and affluence elasticity of food waste. PLoS One.
2020.15(2). - Dury S, Bendjebbar P, Hainzelin É, Giordano T, Bricas N. Food Systems at risk: new trends and challenges. Rome, Montpellier, Brussels; 2019.
- HLPE. Food security and nutrition: building a global narrative towards 2030. Rome, Italy; 2020.
- Springmann M. Background paper on the nutritional aspects of food loss and waste. Report commissioned by the Global Panel on Agriculture and Food Systems for Nutrition. London. 2018.
- Springmann M. Background paper on the nutritional aspects of food loss and waste. Report commissioned by the Global Panel on Agriculture and Food Systems for Nutrition. London. 2018.
- FAO. The State of Food and Agriculture: Moving Forward on Food Loss and Waste Reduction. Rome, Italy; 2019.
- FAO. The State of Food and Agriculture: Moving Forward on Food Loss and Waste Reduction. Rome, Italy; 2019.
- Cheikh Mbow, Cynthia Rosenzweig. Chapter 5: Food Security. In: IPCC Climate Change and Land. 2019.
- Rosenzweig C, Mbow C, Barioni LG, Benton TG, Herrero M, Krishnapillai M, et al. Climate change responses benefit from a global food system approach. Nat Food. 2020.1(2):94–7. Copyright granted September 2020.
- Global Panel on Agriculture and Food Systems for Nutrition.. Preventing nutrient loss and waste across the food system: Policy actions for high-quality diets. Policy Brief No.12.London, UK; 2018.
- COMCEC. Reducing Postharvest Losses in the OIC Member Countries [Internet]. Ankara, Turker; 2016 [cited 2020 Jul 9]. Available from: www.comcec.org
- Global Panel on Agriculture and Food Systems for Nutrition.. Preventing nutrient loss and waste across the food system: Policy actions for high-quality diets. Policy Brief No.12.London, UK; 2018.
- Global Panel on Agriculture and Food Systems for Nutrition.. Preventing nutrient loss and waste across the food system: Policy actions for high-quality diets. Policy Brief No.12.London, UK; 2018.
- Springmann M. Background paper on the nutritional aspects of food loss and waste. Report commissioned by the Global Panel on Agriculture and Food Systems for Nutrition. London. 2018.
- Global Knowledge Initiatives. Innovating the Future of Food Systems | A global scan for the innovations needed to transform food systems in emerging markets by 2035. 2017. License https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
- Gelli A, Donovan J, Margolies A, Aberman N, Santacroce M, Chirwa E, et al. Value chains to improve diets: Diagnostics to support intervention design in Malawi. Glob Food Sec. 2019.
- Gelli A, Donovan J, Margolies A, Aberman N, Santacroce M, Chirwa E, et al. Value chains to improve diets: Diagnostics to support intervention design in Malawi. Glob Food Sec. 2019.
- Global Knowledge Initiatives. Innovating the Future of Food Systems | A global scan for the innovations needed to transform food systems in emerging markets by 2035. 2017. License https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
- Hansen AR KC and SG. Nutritious Food Foresight: Twelve ways to invest in good food in emerging markets. 2019.
- World Economic Forum. Innovation with a Purpose: The role of technology innovation in accelerating food systems transformation.
- World Economic Forum. Innovation with a Purpose: The role of technology innovation in accelerating food systems transformation.
- World Economic Forum. Innovation with a Purpose: The role of technology innovation in accelerating food systems transformation.
- Global Panel on Agriculture and Food Systems for Nutrition.. Preventing nutrient loss and waste across the food system: Policy actions for high-quality diets. Policy Brief No. 12. London, UK;
- FAO. SAVE FOOD: Global Initiative on Food Loss and Waste Reduction |Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations [Internet]. [cited 2020 Jul 15]; Available from: http://www.fao.org/save-food
- Global Panel on Agriculture and Food Systems for Nutrition.. Preventing nutrient loss and waste across the food system: Policy actions for high-quality diets. Policy Brief No.12. London, UK; 2018.