“This regional workshop has helped the BRIA teams to better contribute to Value Chain (VC) upgrading, market access solutions and implementation strategies in their respective countries.”
BRIA aims to upgrade the rice value chain in the region by strengthening farmer organizations and facilitating multi-stakeholder dialogue among value chain actors.
To reflect on its commitments to strengthen market linkages on its project indicators, the BRIA Regional Secretariat held an in-house workshop at Taman Simalem Resort (TSR), in North Sumatra, Indonesia, from 31 August to 1 September, 2016. In the third year of project implementation, BRIA countries have implemented various strategies and interventions.
This regional workshop therefore allowed BRIA teams in the four countries to share and exchange experiences and lessons learnt to sharpen the market linkage strategies. Representatives of the ASEAN Sustainable Agrifood Systems (SAS) and other GIZ related projects were also invited to join this event in order to accumulate internal and external expertise on rice cultivation practices and to enhance joint collaboration. The meeting helped the participants gain a common understanding of upgrading the market linkages in each specific project country while clarifying some general principles with regard to the understanding of food-marketing systems within a development context. To make any effective interventions in the systems, it is necessary to define the types of marketing channels, their linkages and functions.
Specifically, the workshop sought to achieve the following objectives and expected outputs:
- To exercise the value chain analysis under the framework of the ValueLinks methodology developed by GIZ
- To work on various relevant market linkage models in the region under the ValueLinks framework (value chain analysis methodology)
- To understand and document the rice market in the region through lessons learnt in various BRIA countries
- To revisit and improve BRIA’s market linkage strategies
- To share market linkage models and strategies in each BRIA country
- To analyse and document BRIA interventions in the value chain area
Prior to the workshop, the participants took part in a field visit on 30 August to explore the value chain models in North Sumatra by visiting small- and medium-sized millers, rice farmers (Rice Value Chain), the Taman Simalem organic farm & market (Organic Horticulture Value Chain), seed growers and the association (Rice Seed Value Chain). The participants had opportunities to assess the current supply chain, actors and functions and potential Value Chain upgrading in the province.
Value Chain Analysis with ValueLinks
At the workshop, the participants assessed supply chain models from the project’s interventions covering pre-production, production up until the customers or consumers, from the farmer group level to the district, provincial and national levels. They then presented the relevant value chain mapping to show all the various actors and their functions, challenges as well as potential, and analysed lessons learned from the upgrading solutions.
The participants based their analyses on the ValueLinks framework covering the following guiding topics:
- Markets situation of the commodity in a specific chain (variety/type, quantity, prices, channels, level, specific region, im/exports, demand and supply)
- Actors of the supply chain (SC), roles and shares
- Constraints involved along the SC
- Project´s interventions and key strategies
- Supply chain mapping, market linkages, upgraded map
- Economic benefits/added to Value Chain actors at different levels
- Environmental impacts to/from the Value Chain, social impacts of the Value Chain at different levels
- Progress/results of the selected solutions
- Lessons learned to the present (What works well and what does not? What are the key success factors and what are key concerns/obstacles? What would be done differently next time?)
- Drivers of product marketing (product quality, pricing, value proposition, risk management, relationship with customers) market trend (value and preference: taste, colour, certification, etc.), global trends, guaranteed supply, etc.)
- Elements that need to be considered such as the relationship between farmers and middlemen, product grading (quality), policy on the standard, infrastructure, logistics, etc.
The BRIA Regional Secretariat believes that this second regional workshop has helped the BRIA teams to better contribute to Value Chain upgrading, market access solutions and implementation strategies in their respective countries. The first workshop entitled “Capacity Development to Boost the Rice Sector” was organized in Bangkok, Thailand in May last year.