Infrastructure investment is fundamental for

Transcript:Infrastructure investment is fundamental for:
Infrastructure investment is fundamental for resilience & food security Tom Reardon & Saweda Liverpool-Tasie Talk for USAID, April 29, 2022 1. Infrastructure = bones & blood of food system hard infrastructure not specific to FSC (e.g., roads, ports) specific to FSC (e.g., wholesale markets) ... most food in Africa and South Asia comes to consumers via wholesale markets b) soft infrastructure services & materials delivered by "lateral supply chains" (wholesale, logistics, finance), and materials (such as energy) Policies of business enabling environment … bribes, multiple-taxation, excessive certifications, uncertain, red tape … ESPECIALLY important in intermediate stage of food system development (SMEs); Nigerian entrepreneur example 2. Downstream consumers depend on blood & bones 80% of African and 80-90% of South Asian national food consumption purchased Many consumers FSCs depend on "long infrastructure" – Nigerian maize consumers: 500-1000km long FSCs Senegalese FV consumers Tanzanian FV consumers 3. Midstream SMEs depend on bones & blood 60% of FSC "formed" by midstream SMEs Depends heavily on logistics "blood" and "bones" 4% of Nigerian urban maize traders own trucks: rest use 3PLS; 500-1000 km trips 80% of traders costs formed by energy costs Road quality (& banditry, conflict) double taxation, bribes condition costs Depend on wholesale markets as base 4. Farmers depend on blood & bones Farmers selling to markets (mainly to cities) 13 times more likely to "sustainably intensify" (organic matter, bunds, terraces, fertilizer) b) input costs conditioned by blood & bones … 4 million tons of fertilizer per year in Africa… delivered by 100's of 1000s of trucks & traders over (mainly private) supply chain 5. Two big hopes current hopes depend for success on fundamentals (blood & bones) Big hope now to "leapfrog" with digitalization, e-commerce … but debate glosses over need for blood & bones first in place b) Big hopes for farmers with diversification into high value crops and sustainable intensification & supply chains to be resilient high-value products like chicken & horticulture: tomatoes in Tanzania, potatoes in Rwanda, aquaculture in Nigeria & Bangladesh basic productivity: maize in Zambia soil conservation: potatoes in Rwanda climate resilience: irrigation for tomatoes in Tanzania & Senegal traders resilience depend on blood & bones to be resilient: our work sustainable intensification lab during COVID: "non-essential essentials" in Nigeria 6. Policy recommendations Invest heavily & rapidly in roads, bridges, ports, & wholesale markets foremost Bangladesh rural feeder roads & fish wholesale markets China wholesale markets