Formulating Value Chains for Orphan Crops in Africa

Cultivars that emerged during the Green Revolution focused on increasing yield, primarily of a few staple crops, that together with changes in farming systems (e.g. artificial fertilizer applications) did much to ensure adequate supply of affordable calories. This original strategy has, however, been at the expense of research into sustainable yield improvement and improved environmental resilience of orphan crops (e.g. teff, finger millet, yam, roots and tubers that are regionally important but not world traded and receive no attention from researchers). The current strategy regarding orphan crops is represented by the African Orphan Crops Consortium (AOCC) that focuses on genetic improvement to increase resilience to climate change and to improve productivity, under the assumption that increased diversity of crop species sown and harvested implies a greater diversity of consumption. However, this is not the case in rural or urban areas. The purpose of this project is to more effectively bridge current supply-side research on orphan crops with attitudes from consumers, to help have an impact on poverty, health, sustainable growth and food security in developing countries. This will be done by examining the entire supply chain and by multidisciplinary interaction of social, crop and food scientists who will seek to reformulate popular processed foods using orphan crop ingredients. Targeted orphan crops will be selected early on in the project based on existing demand and technical information as well as engagement and discussion with potential food processors. Research will be broken down into three interrelated work areas: (1)Supply chain analysis (including demand); (2)Options for development of new ingredients and foods based on orphan crops; and (3)Identification of solutions to production constraints of prioritised orphan crops.

Supply chain analysis (including demand analysis) will:(1) contribute to the selection of the targeted orphan crops for other parts of the project by providing indicators that will rank crops according to their potential to make significant impact on local health and income;(2) analyse the role that orphan crops play in Sub-Saharan African diets using available household surveys;(3) analyse the use of orphan crops as ingredients in new products in Sub-Saharan African markets;(4) analyse the structure of particular supply chains associated with the products and ingredients of prioritised orphan crops; and (5) provide an ex-ante analysis of the impact that the creation of the value chains may have.

The identification of new ingredients and the development of foods based on orphan crop analysis will proceed in two stages:(1) the project will link the Edinburgh Complex Fluids Partnership (ECFP) with food processing companies in Sub Saharan Africa . In discussion together with the results of the demand analysis- products that are suitable for reformulation selected orphan crops ingredients will be identified;(2) ECFP will perform experiments in its laboratories in Edinburgh to identify suitable recipes and processing methods to make food products, e.g. bread, using flours from orphan crops rather than from staples such as wheat.

In parallel we will explore solutions to identified barriers to the efficient production of the selected orphan crops. A time-frame for screening crops for yield and quality improvements, including processing quality for food production, will also be published as a project technical note. The climatic and growing factors limiting production in these high potential orphan crops will be identified in order to integrate existing knowledge of how crop choice and agronomics affect grain quality for processing and end use. Also, evidence from local or other published sources on traits that maximise crop productivity and increase crop resilience to increasing climatic variability, including pests and diseases, will be sourced to complement other crop promotion effort.

This multidisciplinary project aims to bridge the supply-side research being done on orphan crops in Africa with the demand-side (e.g. food firms, consumers), to ensure impact on multiple fronts (e.g. poverty, health, sustainable growth, food security). This will be accomplished by considering possibilities along the entire supply chain through the interaction of social, crop and food scientists who shall seek to reformulate popular processed foods using orphan crop ingredients. Two orphan crops for further exploration will be selected based on the outputs of the first stage of the project based on potential social impact, technical characteristics, and the interests of the food processing companies. The project comprises three interrelated analyses:

(1) Supply chain analysis that will consider: demand analysis of orphan crop products to guide product marketing; new products using orphan crops; the assessment of orphan crop value chains; and ex-ante evaluation of the project. This work will use secondary information and existing household surveys.
(2) Food science analysis will use rheological techniques where the response of doughs derived from starches of African orphan crops will be measured quantitatively in stress tests, to assess the suitability of doughs for the manufacture of foods. More specifically, it will explore the viscoelasticity and strain-hardening behaviour of doughs under biaxial extension, and it will seek formulations that optimise this behaviour, since these properties helps to prevent fracture during food-processing, enhancing manufacturability and product quality.
(3) Solutions to bottlenecks in the production of prioritised orphan crops will focus on crop improvement strategies for identifying traits that maximise productivity and quality. This will involve procedures for phenotypic selection and genotyping helping to maximise resilience to climate change and to the increasing threats from pests, diseases and abiotic stresses.

This research focuses on developing sustainable efficient food value chains for orphan crops that provide products that target specific local demand from urban and rural areas. This is done through developing food products and ingredients based on them and studying the best way of operating their supply chains. Therefore, the direct beneficiaries from the research are those actors that either are already part of - or have the potential in the future to assemble - orphan crop value chains. The creation of these chains has multiplicative positive upstream and downstream effects. The research results will support African populations' access to safe, sufficient and nutritious food products for a healthy life, whilst maintaining a healthy environment under an increasing demand for food due to growing populations, urbanisation and changing diets. It is expected that the project will contribute to support UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in ways indicated in the Case for Support. As regards knowledge exchange (KE) activities, to ensure that the project reaches diverse stakeholders these are given below by area (although in several cases KE activities will also be cross-cutting):

1. Supply chain and demand component - This component will understand the demand side of orphan crops and their value chains and how production systems interact with their political, economic, societal and cultural contexts. This information will be disseminated through different stakeholders that are part of the AOCC (e.g. the CGIAR). The research team has links with the AOCC through Dr Ian Dawson, who works with the AOCC and SRUC. Dissemination will be in the form of meetings and research briefings.

SRUC also has contacts with a number of African institutions such as the African Institute of Corporate Citizenship (AICC), which is interested in the generation of sustainable agribusinesses to reduce poverty through sustainable economic growth in the agricultural sector. As part of this work, the AICC facilitates and coordinates business-led, enterprise-driven solutions and partnerships to promote growth and improve public-private cooperation in agriculture. In addition, the social science researchers of the project have excellent contacts through the African Association of Agricultural Economists and the International Association of Agricultural Economists.

2. Food science component - The food science work on ingredients and healthy products is targeted to food companies who will be contacted by the project's team members through links with other parties (e.g., the African Institute of Corporate Citizenship, AOCC, CGIAR centres including the World Agroforestry Centre that coordinates the AOCC and ICARDA). As mentioned in the Case for Support, this will happen from the start of the project. This work will be conducted by ECFP which has engaged with over 30 companies over the past 5 years, 60% of which are multinationals, to transfer knowledge gained from research into product development. ECFP will achieve impact with African companies through using its experience of engaging directly with food producers and developing appropriate collaborative research pathways.

3. Crop Science component - This component will work on strategies for maximising crop productivity and quality, and ensuring resilience to increasing climatic variability and against pests and diseases for the selected orphan crops. In this way, it will complement other international promotion efforts on these crops. We envisage that this information will be mainly disseminated to different stakeholders that are part of the AOCC (e.g. CGIAR centres and national breeders that are part of the African Plant Breeders' Academy, which is part of the AOCC initiative) through the already established links.

Project results in the form of briefings and presentations will also be available on the project website.