The potential of bundled innovations to increase smallholders and SMEs’ competitiveness and profitability

General
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CGIAR’s Rethinking Food Markets Initiative, is undertaking studies in Uganda, Nigeria and Central America to explore the potential of bundled innovations and complementary interventions for inducing changes in market behaviour that ultimately lead to greater benefits for the poor, fairer value-added sharing in value chains, and adoption of sustainable practices.

The central questions to explore are:

  • Which bundled innovations, including inclusive business models and contracts and product quality upgrading, have a high potential for increasing smallholders and SMEs’ competitiveness and profitability within traditional Domestic Food Value Chains (DFVCs)?

  • How can governments, NGOs, and research centres better support the inclusive and sustainable development of DFVCs and catalyse investments that ensure uptake and scaling of bundled value chain innovations?

Background for discussion:

The rapid advance of urbanization, income growth, and foreign investment in low- and middle-income countries present huge employment and income opportunities along Domestic Food Value Chains (DFVCs) in these countries. However, smallholders, traders, processors, and distributors along DFVCs face considerable obstacles to seize such opportunities, including lack of infrastructure; low demand for higher quality products; poor access to information, inputs, and services; and high costs to coordinate actions among numerous and often informal producers and traders. Overcoming these obstacles will require coordinated interventions at multiple levels of DFVCs, from on-farm production to quality control in distribution, to improved marketing to local consumers.

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Improved storage and logistics are innovations that can help reduce food waste, improve food quality and safety, lower business costs and increase market access for farmers and consumers. Some examples of improved storage and logistics are cold chain technologies, smart packaging, digital platforms, traceability systems and efficient transportation. These innovations can also help mitigate the impacts of humanitarian crises and climate change by enhancing food security and resilience.

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On the innovations logistic services in Nigeria, a significant challenge remains post-harvest loss because of poor/inefficient logistics services. How about some interventions including plastic crates for transporting perishable vegetables and fruits, cool transportation services, off-grid cool storage to reduce food loss, and increased market information and coordination services?

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We will be hosting a panel discussion as part of the KISM public launch on March 7 from 9:00 am to 10:30 am. The panel discussion will cover the same topic that is being discussed in this forum. We invite you to join us for the public launch by registering for the event here: http://ow.ly/alZp50N5sQx

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As part of the MELIA&SPA* team of the Rethinking Food Markets Initiative, I closely accompany the bundling activities within our Initiative. Bundling can be defined as the process of combining products, services or processes - with the resulting bundle either (1) containing one or more innovation or (2) constituting an innovative combination of elements.

To provide an example for a bundle: an eco-friendly, long-term cost saving new technology (a core innovation) could be combined with financial services, rendering it affordable, and capacity building, for informed decision-making and operation of the technology. Bundling thus is a demand-based process and often user-group specific, living on the nuanced and early feedback from different customers, users or beneficiaries.

As part of our Initiative, e.g., in Honduras and Nigeria, we held participatory stakeholder workshops to co-design innovation bundles and interventions. In preparation of the workshops, country and work package teams conducted scoping studies to explore challenges and opportunities in food markets. The research teams identified innovation areas, potential innovations or innovation bundles, serving as a basis for discussion with stakeholders. We received valuable feedback during the workshops, brought together diverse stakeholders along the respective value chains and initiated conversations about partnerships for testing and scaling the innovation bundles. Bundling is an important step for increasing an innovations’ scaling preparedness.

In the Food Markets Initiative, we all constantly learn from each other.

My personal main lessons learnt from the co-design workshop in Nigeria was that the private sector is often already thinking in terms of bundles and scaling them (i.e., expanding their customer base). Private businesses seem to do so more successfully and quicker than research for development (R4D) institutions. We, R4D actors, take time testing and assessing the impacts, before we would consider an innovation (bundle) as ‘scaling ready’. Many innovations are taken to scale by the market while being untested in scientific terms. This is one example where our Initiative has great added value: probing and improving the social and environmental performance of innovation bundles for more inclusive and sustainable food markets.

What are your lessons learnt so far? I would be happy to hear about your insights, thoughts and questions around bundling.

With greetings from Accra, Ghana.
Mirja (IWMI)

*Monitoring, Evaluation, Learning and Impact Assessment & Scaling Preparedness and Action

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@Mirja_Michalscheck, thanks for sharing what you have learned! In the public launch event today, Tom and Hope will share their thoughts about the bundled innovations in the panel discussion. You can directly ask questions from this forum as well.

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Here is the meeting agenda:

KISM Public Launch Program – March 7, 2023
9:00 - 10:30 AM EST
Agenda
9:00 – 9:05 am Welcome remarks
Swati Malhotra, Communications Specialist (IFPRI/Rethinking Food Markets Initiative)
9:05 – 9:15 am Setting the stage & introduction to KISM
Rob Vos, Director of Markets, Trade & Institutions Unit (IFPRI) and Initiative Lead
9:15 – 9:30 am What is KISM?
Kristin Komives, Director of Programmes (ISEAL)
Rita Mendez, Senior Coordinator, Impacts (ISEAL)
9:30 – 10:15 am Building a multidisciplinary research initiative – Panel Discussion

  1. WP leads talk
    Nicholas Minot – Senior Research Fellow (IFPRI)
    Kate Ambler – Research Fellow (IFPRI)
  2. Stakeholder’s talk
    Abubakar Haruna – The Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, Nigeria
    Muhammad Yakubu- CEO of Bunkasa
  3. Live discussion
    • Demonstration of the KISM Discussion Forum
    Soonho Kim - Senior Data Manager (IFPRI)
    • Panel discussion
    o Moderator: Kristin Komives, Director of Programmes (ISEAL)
    o Hope Michelson - Associate Professor (UIUC)
    o Tom Reardon – University Distinguished Professor (MSU)
    10:15 – 10:25 am Q/A Session from the audience
    10:25 – 10:30 am Closing remarks
    Rob Vos, Director of Markets, Trade & Institutions Unit (IFPRI) and Initiative Lead
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@Bunkasa, could you share your experience as a private sector in Nigeria about scaling up the bundled innovation?