My research paper identified five pathways for scaling legumes-based entrepreneurship. These include contract farming; leasing business model; mobilizing public and private financing solutions for enterprise development; developing and supporting existing seed systems enterprises; and building on private equity model to scale high potential legumes-based start-ups and small to medium enterprises. It was also noted that export value chain programming is a key pathway for entrepreneurship development especially in light of the coming in of the African Continental Free Trade Area.
The synthesised framework for scaling entrepreneurship recognises that for an innovative and scalable solution, there must be a shared vision, that informs sector scanning to identify constraints and tipping points for transformative market system development. This must be supported by strategic partnerships through multistakeholder platforms that steer and support legumes entrepreneurship. Learning systems and flexibility were identified as key integral components of the framework. Leadership, governance, specific policy incentives, resources provision, and capacity development were also identified as key pillars that support efforts to scale entrepreneurship.
Constraints for scaling up legumes-based entrepreneurship were noted to be both supply and demand-sided. For legumes supply, previous research showed that low input usage, lack of healthy seeds systems, use of unimproved varieties, pests and diseases, lack of access to credit, and poor advisory and extension services are key militants. Poor post-harvest technologies also add to this list. Continual capacity development, partnerships for innovative financing, strong seeds systems, agriculture mechanisation, among others, were noted as having significant potential for driving increased legumes productivity in the study region.
From the market side, unreliability and legumes price volatility, low farm gate prices, high transport costs are high due to general underdeveloped road infrastructure and distance to the market, poor market and trade linkages, underdeveloped agriculture incubation and acceleration system, lack of legume stimulating policies, lack of financial capital and skills for small scale businesses, youths and women were noted, among others as key hurdles to be dealt with. Partnerships for financing, value chain development, seed systems, etc, were highlighted to play a key role in solving these problems.
Some Useful References
AKPO, E., OJIEWO, C. O., KAPRAN, I., OMOIGUI, L. O., DIAMA, A. & VARSHNEY, R. K. 2021. Enhancing Smallholder Farmers’ Access to Seed of Improved Legume Varieties Through Multi-stakeholder Platforms: Learning from the TLIII project Experiences in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, Springer Nature
RUBYOGO, J.-C., AKPO, E., OMOIGUI, L., POORAN, G., CHATURVEDI, S. K., FIKRE, A., HAILE, D., HAKEEM, A., MONYO, E., NKALUBO, S., FENTA, B., BINAGWA, P., KILANGO, M., WILLIAMS, M., MPONDA, O., OKELLO, D., CHICHAYBELU, M., MININGOU, A., BATIONO, J., SAKO, D., KOUYATE, Z., DIALLO, S., OTENG-FRIMPONG, R., YIRZAGLA, J., IORLAMEN, T., GARBA, U., MOHAMMED, H., OJIEWO, C., KAMARA, A., VARSHNEY, R., NIGAM, S. N., JANILA, P., NADAF, H. L. & KALEMERA, S. 2019. Market-led options to scale up legume seeds in developing countries: Experiences from the Tropical Legumes Project. Plant Breeding, 138, 474-486
YIRGA, C., RASHID, S., BEHUTE, B. & LEMMA, S. 2019. Pulses value chain potential in Ethiopia: Constraints and opportunities for enhancing exports. Gates Open Res, 3, 276.
My research employed a new methodology that bridged three research perspectives including innovations systems approach, entrepreneurship ecosystem approach, and market system development perspectives. Each of these perspectives provided a powerful contribution that enabled me to synthesise key learnings and bridge them together to identify pathways for entrepreneurship scaling and a framework for scaling legume-based agribusiness.
Insights from the innovation literature highlighted that:
Scaling legumes based entrepreneurship requires;
Systemic lens that looks through all the players, identifies and work with relevant players with strong business models.
Capacity development to build key entrepreneurship competencies is an enduring factor that prevents premature business failure.
Research and development are essential for new knowledge and innovations that are essential for legumes programming, new products, and services development
Specific entrepreneurship stimulating policies like tax incentives provides scaling legitimacy and guidance of search to legume-based products
A clear market focus with strong legume products differentiation and promotion is required to stimulate sustained legumes demand
Strong financial capital and human capital are essential, which necessitates partnerships and innovation platforms.
The entrepreneurship ecosystem approach also corroborates some key aspects for successful scaling as follows;
Local resources, networks, regulation, institutions, market conditions, culture, and resources including technology shapes the context of entrepreneurship activities.
Successful entrepreneurship is often associated with a strong, easily accessible financial capital base, and with the presence of supportive and visible investors, and their networks.
Supporting entrepreneurship should secure or de-risk or blend private capital, or make affordable venture capital accessible to specifically verified productive entrepreneurs and stimulate product’s market demand.
Agribusiness incubation and acceleration programmes are fundamental for supporting entrepeneurs, and can be a powerful force and pathway for scaling legume-based entreprises.
Developing core competencies for entrepreneurship management is fundamental to successful scaling.
Identifying and forming patnerships with key mentors or advisors, associations, incubators, accelerators, private capita sources, government departments and strengthening policy environment is key for providing a suppotive environment for successful scaling
Lastly, the value chain development or market system development perspective also highlighted the following among others;
Sustrainable legumes value chain development should provide a clear business sense, stimulate interest, and brings positive outcomes for all market players.
Legumes-based entrepreneurship can be accelerated through product upgrading (moving into more value-added products), functional upgrading (increases value for money through tasks upgrading) and inter-sectoral upgrading (upgrading into new value-added supply chains).
Targeting legumes value chain development has a great potential to emancipate and economically empower women as most legumes are women’s crops.
Some Useful References
DEVAUX, A., TORERO, M., DONOVAN, J. & HORTON, D. 2018. Agricultural innovation and inclusive value-chain development: a review. Journal of Agribusiness in Developing and Emerging Economies, 8, 99-123
KOIRA, A. K. 2014. Koira AK, 2014. Agribusiness in sub-Saharan Africa: pathways for developing innovative programs for youth and the rural poor: https://mastercardfdn.org/
HERNÁNDEZ, V. & PEDERSEN, T. 2017. Global value chain configuration: A review and research agenda. BRQ Business Research Quarterly, 20, 137-150
LUNDVALL, B.-Å. 2016. National systems of innovation: towards a theory of innovation and interactive learning. The Learning Economy and the Economics of Hope, 85
NEDA, E. K. 2020. Grain legumes production in Ethiopia: A review of adoption, opportunities, constraints and emphases for future interventions. Turkish Journal of Agriculture-Food Science and Technology, 8, 977-989.
NICOTRA, M., ROMANO, M., DEL GIUDICE, M. & SCHILLACI, C. E. 2018. The causal relation between entrepreneurial ecosystem and productive entrepreneurship: A measurement framework. The Journal of Technology Transfer, 43, 640-673
OSORIO-CORTES, L. E. & LUNDY, M. 2018. Behaviour Change Scale-Up in Market Systems Development-A literature review
Scaling legumes entrepreneurship is a big deal!! Here is why;
Legume-based entrepreneurship is very essential in developing countries including my research focus countries, for varied reasons. Most importantly, previous research shows that it creates supply and demand conditions that drive nature positive food production systems that meet human food security, nutrition, social and economic needs.
Legumes provide vast benefits to mankind. Below are some benefits of legumes
As one can see from the figure above, previous research has shown that legumes promote agroecological principles, improves soil health and fertility, and they are climate-smart in both reducing indirect greenhouse gas emissions associated with fertilisers, and build builds climate change and drought resilience. Moreover, their role in providing a rich, affordable protein source that improves the health of the poor (nutrition and food security) cannot be over-emphasised. Their role also in providing opportunities for gender-responsive rural economies diversification, legume-based enterprises establishment, trade, and exports has been adequately documented in the literature. This surely addresses many sustainable development goals, including ending hunger, good health and wellbeing, gender equality, and climate action among others.
Scaling legumes entrepreneurship enhances all these benefits and Yes it can make a big difference! As past research has shown that, entrepreneurship spurs innovation, this enhances opportunities for increased income and employment for rural youth and women, and economic development. Schumpeter and Backhaus (2003) have long emphasised the role of entrepreneurship which they have centered at the heart of economic theory and practice. In the same manner, legumes entrepreneurship is a big deal that increases legumes-based innovation, productivity, and legumes business dynamism. This provides the impetus for scaling legumes, which have low adoption rates in East Africa, and sub-Saharan Africa as a whole.
However, previous research has shown many barriers which include lack of policy support, advisory and extension services, improved varieties, financial capital, improved innovative practices, prices instabilities, poor markets, poor seed support systems millitates against efforts to scale legumes-based entrepreneurship. This means that entrepreneurship scaling will need clear efforts targeting value chain development, capacity building, innovations, partnerships, among others.
In summary, scaling legumes entrepreneurship is a very big deal! which have the potential to meet both environmental, social, and economic goals that enhance the welfare of women, youth, and the poor and contributing to the economic development of the developing countries.
Some UsefulReferences
FARINHA, L., FERREIRA, J. J. M. & NUNES, S. 2018. Linking innovation and entrepreneurship to economic growth. Competitiveness Review: An International Business Journal, 28, 451-475.
MAWOIS, M., VIDAL, A., REVOYRON, E., CASAGRANDE, M., JEUFFROY, M.-H. & LE BAIL, M. 2019. Transition to legume-based farming systems requires stable outlets, learning, and peer-networking. Agronomy for Sustainable Development, 39, 14
OJIEWO, C., RUBYOGO, J. C., WESONGA, J., BISHAW, Z., ABANG, M. M. & GELALCHA, S. 2018. Mainstreaming efficient legume seed systems in Eastern Africa: challenges, opportunities and contributions towards improved livelihoods, FAO.
Schumpeter J., Backhaus U. (2003) The Theory of Economic Development. In: Backhaus J. (eds) Joseph Alois Schumpeter. The European Heritage in Economics and the Social Sciences, vol 1. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/0-306-48082-4_3
TESFAI, M., NJARUI, D. & GHIMIRE, S. R. 2019. Sustainable intensifications of African agriculture through legume-based cropping and Brachiaria forage systems. African Journal of Agricultural Research, 14, 1138-1148.
Wooh!! I am so excited that finally, I have submitted my research project paper!
Penning my research paper entitled, ‘ Entrepreneurship Pathways For Scaling Legume-Based Agroecological Intensification Of Maize And Cassava Cropping Systems In Tanzania, Malawi, Zambia, And Ethiopia,’ has been an exciting journey, with ups and downs. Yes, Ups, as I have managed to meet some original research objectives and downs as some objectives were dropped along the way. Of course, this could be expected given the current COVID-19 circumstances that caused my research to be desk-based and online.
Identify pathways or routes for scaling up legume-based entrepreneurship.
Develop a framework or model for scaling up legume-based entrepreneurship.
Evaluate potential high impact productive entrepreneurs for partnering on legume-based entrepreneurship programmes
Evaluate potential accelerators and incubators for partnering on legume-based entrepreneurship.
Collecting primary data in the four countries for answering the third and fourth objectives, within a short space of time became cumbersome. Very low response rates were being recorded against the time which was running out. Eventually, my final paper dropped the last two and took up the first two, and added one; to identify barriers and opportunities for legumes-based entrepreneurship in the four focus countries.
With three objectives, my paper was set to partly address one of the broader EU-funded project’s key deliverables of increasing agribusiness and employment opportunities for women and rural youth through legume-derived enterprises. The overall aim of the broader project is to intensify legume-based agroecological maize and cassava cropping systems for water-food-energy nexus sustainability, nutritional security & livelihood resilience. My research paper provides the groundwork for the realisation of this aim. Again, I am glad that I have successfully completed this grand work, and I am sure it will make a difference!! Many thanks to my Research Supervisors; Prof Spillane, Dr McKeown, and Mr Allen. Your guidance and support are greatly appreciated!!
The informal food economy or wet markets significantly contributes to food and nutrition security, health, and livelihoods in the developing world. It is pivotal in meeting the food and nutrition needs at a lower cost supplying even up to 80% of low and middle-income populations. The COVID-19 restrictions which were mostly blind to this sector and caused a spike in hunger in developing nations show the importance of this sector. Yet, food safety and quality in this wet economy are often ignored and ineffectively regulated. These markets are non-transparent and often prone to activities that contribute to food safety. Research by Jaffee et al., 2018 shows that low- and middle-income countries in South Asia, Southeast Asia, and Sub-Saharan Africa accounts for 41% of the global population that is afflicted by 53% of all foodborne diseases and suffers 75% of the related deaths some linked to the informal food economy. This burden can, however, be reduced through game-changing systemic preventive low-cost interventions along the farm to fork chain.
A food safety toolkit represents one such transformative, pro-poor & low-cost intervention innovation. Yes, coalescing around this idea and launch this innovation can be a systemic game-changer for the informal food economy. It is high time to adopt a new approach to food safety and changing food culture in this sector. Such an innovation has never been launched and applied and its time is now. Food safety is both a public good and a shared responsibility. Every player in the informal food economy can be linked through this food safety toolkit.
Research shows that culture is one of the main determinants of food safety. The draconian model of emphasising the burden on governments’ inspections, product testing, legal penalties to change food safety culture can be misplaced in the informal economy where it is expensive to implement and often increases informal food economy’s elusivity. A flexible and inclusive food safety toolkit that focuses primarily on doing right things, and then things right, ensuring an absolute minimum food quality and safety measures, represent a focused step towards a regulation model innovation of the informal food economy. Research support this stakeholders’ engagement approach as central for food safety culture transformation in the wet economy.
The aim of a food safety toolkit is to reduce food safety risks for consumers. The toolkit can have many co-benefits. For instance, Hoffmann et al., 2019 notes that improving food safety often improves food quality outcomes, reducing spoilage, loss of nutritious value and food waste, increasing health and wellbeing outcomes, and ensuring food and nutrition security. Inadequate food safety standards and poor food safety practices often shut out the informal food economy to supply formal value chains. Thus, improving food safety may increase access to new markets, formal retailers, and increase the supply of safe nutritious food.
In the informal food economy, producers, distributors, processors, food handlers, marketers, and consumers may be individuals, and the establishment of a certifiable food safety management system may not be practical. Moreso, where small companies exist, it may be very costly and prohibitive. Thus, the toolkit which is holistic, user-friendly, simplified, interactive, guided by risk-based approaches & Hazard Analysis Critical Control Points (HACCP) principles focusing on the right applicable elements should improve both food hygiene and food safety. Focusing on the right elements is enabled through a participatory risk analysis which will be central in the toolkit rather than conventional risk analysis which does not suit well with informal markets. Participatory risk analysis merges the core tenets of conventional risk analysis and participatory appraisal and gender analysis.
The toolkit’s design will be very simplified, hosted on an application software, digital platform, or as digital files which are downloadable and printable to reduce digital devide. Tailoring or auto-translations to the local language will be very important for inclusion. As a minimum, the toolkit must contain modules that adequately cover different food segments like seafood, vegetables, beef, dairy, beverages among others. It must provide practical general documentation with a focus on traceability, simple procedures, and cross-contamination prevention. Depending on the type of players, simple prerequisite programmes requirements, fact sheets, known key critical control points/issues for specific foods at different stages along the value chain focusing on risk rather than hazard must be included. A module with simplified general food legislation and another module specific for food regulators specifying food culture, risk pathway analysis issues are essential. A food policy module is also central and will be a guide for all other modules as applicable.
This toolkit, however, does not exclude the need for building national food safety core competencies like regulatory frameworks and human capital, infrastructure development and investment and formalisation of this informal economy among others. Rather, it must be complemented by these and other change levers like social movement for food safety through a global food safety alliance platform supported by a global food safety index, training and awareness campaigns shaping all players including consumer demand and producer behavior towards food safety (Ortega and Tschirley, 2017, Alonso et al., 2018). This also includes transformative actions like scale-wide cold-chain technologies, disinfection technologies for informal players. Blockchain technology also has the potential for solving food traceability issues depending on society’s digitalisation level among other factors.
By Talent Fundira
References
ALONSO, S., MUUNDA, E., AHLBERG, S., BLACKMORE, E. & GRACE, D. 2018. Beyond food safety: Socio-economic effects of training informal dairy vendors in Kenya. Global Food Security, 18, 86-92.
GRACE, D. 2017. Food safety in developing countries: research gaps and opportunities.
HOFFMANN, V., MOSER, C. & SAAK, A. 2019. Food safety in low and middle-income countries: The evidence through an economic lens. World Development, 123, 104611.
IFC 2016. International Finance Corporation Food Safety Toolkit.
JAFFEE, S., HENSON, S., UNNEVEHR, L., GRACE, D. & CASSOU, E. 2018. The safe food imperative: Accelerating progress in low-and middle-income countries, World Bank Publications.
ORTEGA, D. L. & TSCHIRLEY, D. L. 2017. Demand for food safety in emerging and developing countries: a research agenda for Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. Journal of Agribusiness in Developing and Emerging Economies.
ROESEL, K. & GRACE, D. 2015. Food safety and informal markets: Animal products in sub-Saharan Africa, Routledge.
WEGERIF, M. C. A. 2020. “Informal” food traders and food security: experiences from the Covid-19 response in South Africa. Food Security, 12, 797-800.
YOUNG, G. & CRUSH, J. 2019. Governing the informal food sector in cities of the Global South. Hungry Cities Discussion Paper 30.(also available at https://hungrycities ….
The current global linear, “take-make-dispose/waste”, economic growth path in wealth creation has reached its tipping points. Research has shown that this model’s heavy dependency on natural resources for production and consumption in a cradle to grave fashion is not regenerative and unsustainable. The Ellen MacArthur Foundation, (2019) for example, argues that the current global economic model that does not effectively design out waste, regenerate natural assets, and keep the value of materials cannot achieve the UN sustainable development goals and the 2015 Paris Agreement. Moreover, the COVID-19 pandemic has shown us that a prosperous economic system that reconciles growth, human wellbeing, inequalities, and environmental sustainability should be central in the economic recovery post-COVID-19.
A circular economy where waste and pollution is designed out, growth is decoupled from natural resources, innovation and value creation and preservation are central, and development is human and environment-centered is the only path that brings true wealth, human and planetary prosperity (Chen, 2020).
With circular economy ;
The 2015 Accenture Strategy research has shown that a circular economy could unlock US$4.5 trillion worthy economic opportunities by 2030. This is vital as it has the potential to crank out economies from COVID-19 induced economic recession. Its potential to create new decent jobs post-COVID-19 can bring a leap in closing the 255 million jobs lost during COVID1-19. The same Accenture Strategy report also shows that a circular economy can address up to 45% of the total global greenhouse gas (GHGs) emissions. A circular economy presents opportunities for new product and service innovations, enhancing business competitiveness and alleviating supply chain risks (Milan, 2020).
Circular economy may be achieved through five business models that Accenture Strategy posits including digital sharing platforms, Products-as-a-Service, Product Life Extension, Circular Supply Chains, and Recovery and Recycling. However, this systemic transformational change’s accelerated scaling up needs collaboration across all players in the economy.
The Platform for Accelerating the Circular Economy (PACE)’s Circular Economy Action Agenda represents one of the great collaborative efforts to guide circularity transition in the plastics, textiles, electronics, food, and capital equipment sectors. Circular Car Initiative focuses specifically on automobiles to achieve an automobility industry aligned with a 1.5ºC climate scenario. Capital equipment’s circularity with a focus on automobiles will be discussed here. Capital equipment constitutes 13% of global GDP, 23% of global waste annually, and accounts for 6.5% of total GHGs emissions, 6.5% annual materials consumption, and 56% of global ore consumption (Circle Economy, 2019). The circularity of capital equipment is a requisite to drive out this waste, ensuring carbon neutrality, saving natural resources, economic wellbeing and sustainability.
In the automobile industry, a circular economy can reduce GHGs emissions by at least 75%, and natural resource consumption by 80%. The graph below shows the 98% GHGs reduction impact that car circularity can have on the total emissions from the automobile industry.
It can be seen that phasing out combustion engines for electric batteries adoption alone will not do the job. Leveraging this on car circularity will be the best dividends paying way to drastically reduce carbon emissions.
How a circular car maximise value from resource consumption?
Accenture’s car circularity taxonomy provides stages to achieve automotive circularity up to the year 2050. Applying the value maximisation strategies above, the key car circularity transformations for sustainability are shown in figure 3 below;
Car manufacturers like BMW, Volvo, Renault, Volkswagen among others have already committed to carbon neutrality mainly through electrical vehicle and hydrogen cell fuel vehicle portfolios. However, as noted earlier to ensure circularity requires going beyond net-zero emission, companies like Groupe Renault, have taken the first move to establish a car circularity factory in Europe. Its four centers; Retrofit Re-Trofit, Re-Energy, Re-Cycle and Re-Start will be based on the car circularity transformational pathways. Retrofit will focus on extending life span through reconditioning to less carbon-intensive energy vehicles. Re-Energy focuses on upgrading the electrical ecosystem and new energy battery repair and giving a battery second life whilst Recycling focuses on the collection, dismantling, re-use, remanufacturing, and recycling and lastly Re-start focusing on innovation and knowledge sharing-startup incubators, research, and mobility as a service.
A glance on the Groupe Renault Car Circular economy;
Re-Factory in Flins: The first European circular economy factory | Groupe Renault
References used
CHEN, C.-W. 2020. Improving Circular Economy Business Models: Opportunities for Business and Innovation: A new framework for businesses to create a truly circular economy. Johnson Matthey Technology Review, 64, 48-58.
Circular Car Initiative and World Economic Forum. 2020. ‘The Road Ahead: A Policy Research Agenda for Automotive Circularity.’ http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_A_policy_research_agenda_for_automotive_circularity_2020.pdf.
Circular Car Initiative, World Economic Forum and Accenture Strategy. 2020. ‘Raising Ambitions: A New Roadmap for the Automotive Circular Economy’ http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Raising_Ambitions_2020.pdf.
Circle Economy. 2020. ‘The Circularity Gap Report 2020. When Circularity Goes From Bad to Worse: The Power of Countries to Change the Game.’ https://pacecircular.org/sites/default/files/202001/Circularity%20Gap%20Report%202020.pdf
Ellen MacArthur Foundation and Material Economics. 2019. ‘Complete the Picture: How the Circular Economy Tackles Climate Change’. Https://www.ellenmacarthurfoundation.org/assets/downloads/Completing_The_Picture_How_The_Circular_Economy-_Tackles_Climate_Change_ V3_26_September.pdf.
Lacy, P., W. Spindler, and J. Long. 2020. ‘The Circular Economy Handbook.’ Accenture. https://www.accenture.com/us-en/about/ events/the-circular-economy-handbook.
MILAN, U. 2020. Circular economy, sustainable capitalism. Università Ca’Foscari Venezia.
WEF 2020: The Road Ahead: A policy research agenda for automotive circularity CIRCULAR CARS INITIATIVE POLICY WORKSTREAM DECEMBER 2020
WEF & Accenture Strategy. 2020. Raising Ambitions: A new roadmap for the automotive circular economy CIRCULAR CARS INITIATIVE BUSINESS MODELS CLUSTER DECEMBER 2020
WEF & McKinsey & Company. 2020. Forging Ahead A materials roadmap for the zero-carbon car CIRCULAR CARS INITIATIVE MATERIALS DECEMBER 2020
Blogging is exciting and interesting, yet, today was my first time to do it. Academic blogging provides a platform to communicate science with the public and the research community. I am happy I am set for this, and thanks to Tony for his academic blogging lecture today. I will be posting on climate change adaptation and mitigation, modelling and climate-smart agriculture practices for sustainable intensification mostly in the Sub-Saharan Africa and the rest of the world.
KORNHER, L. 2018. Maize markets in Eastern and Southern Africa (ESA) in the Context of Climate Change—Background Paper for The State of Agricultural Commodity Markets (SOCO) 2018. FAO: Rome, Italy.
