Brief Summary of September 8 and September 9 Training and Workshop
Summary of September 8th Training
Summary of Presentation given by Professor Dr. Xianping Jia “Regoverning agrifood market and transforming agricultural production in China: from smallholders to pluralistic large farms”
The 2nd day morning was begun with presentation by Professor Dr. Xiangping Jia from Northwest Agriculture and Forestry University on a very interesting topic relevant to “government policies in agrifood market and how it transformed agricultural production in China”. The presentation detailed about the contribution from smallholders to large supermarkets in this transition in the country. He mentioned that family farming has very effective role in agricultural production system in China as well as it has mixed opportunities and challenges to overcome. Opportunities: are as such ecological production process by nature, more efficient than hired labor, farmers organization is primarily subject to family governance, justice and equity is an issue of political argument and as whole small but beautiful. The Challenges are mainly transaction cost related to individual smallholder farmers are prohibited, new-wave of transformed agrofood market, farmers have to confront a rapidly changing technological environment in which substantial inefficiencies may arise, ecology-poverty trap.
He has shared two of his case studies in transformation of agriculture in China. Among them, firstly, he presented a case study on dairy crisis in China which was the addition of Melanin in milk and China marked it as the dark time dairy sector of China. During this crisis moment, Chinese government took actions in several ways, like:
-Subsidies in the farm level
-Changes in marketing policies, e.g. forbidding mobile brokers
-Changes in production policies, e.g. encouraged farmers to move from backyard to Cow Complex/hotel (traditional to formal)
In the 2nd case study, he shared about the initiative in China on fragmented agrifood chain. He mentioned that China has started cooperative farming in 2006. From a survey among 157 farmers in five provinces he found that only 23%of them engaged them in modern super markets, modern marketing channels shoed better choice for the farmers.
Agrofood chain is getting better coordination through farmers Professionals Cooperative (FPCs). However, the coordination of agrofood market through FPCs in China is maintained by impersonal rules and relational agreements. It is challenging to assure traceability and food safety. Brand becomes an important asset specificity of reputation for FPCs to achieve vertical coordination with contracts. Certification to food safety and quality standards, however, is not facilitating the vertical contracts. Chian`s farm Organizations are being backward integrated by agribusiness companies (of processing, trading, agr-chemical, etc.). Decision-making within FPCs in China is still decentralized to individual farmers. However, there is a trend that the decision rights of marketing rights tend to be collectively in right-value sector. The governance structure of FPCs inn transition China presents hybrid forms of both hierarchy and family farming, and there exist dynamic and multiple trajectories. Government policies (direct subsidies on initiation) are limited in promoting. In conclusion, family farm is till the dominant system of agricultural production in China. However, a variety of new forms of production are emerging, leading to pluralistic system. Family farms travels on multiple trajectories with local viability. China faces mixed opportunities and challenges to transform the smallholder farming to large one.
Summary of Presentation given by Dr. Risti Permani in Food Chain Development:
Next Presentation was given by Dr. Risti Permani who is from Global Food Studies, University of Adelaide has presented interesting research outcomes on how food value chain needs to be developed. In her presentation, she termed Marketing Good Policy as:
-Relevance
- Political economy
-Efficient
- partnership
-Regional view
- smallholders
-Information
- Whole of chain
In Indonesia, retail sales value growth increased from 2007 to 2012 which was highest in convenience store. She explained the current trend of dairy value chain in Indonesia. She added that we need increase in importance of standards in Indonesia, China and USA difference in standard, qualities and traceability may varied. It is also very important to know that there is always a lead firm and vertical coordination in supply chain. Form her personal experience, product differentiation is a interesting point in value chain like milk for pregnant women (maternal milk) which she meant that farmers should produce what consumers want to produce. She suggested to follow value chain demand pull rather than traditional supply push that may bring sustainability in the market. According to her presentation, the complexity of value chain depends on: the number of ways in which the commodity is being utilized (and thus transformed); whether it can be stored; how widely it is distributed (e.g. locally consumed vs export) and the number of different participants.
The most interesting change is shifting from domestically oriented to globally integrated. Among what essential changes needs are in coordination, attention in middle segment (hidden middle), Govt. vs. Govt. interactions and governance analysis. There are few steps in Value Chain (VC) Analysis: i) mapping value chain, ii) determine the demand and supply condition of the value chain, iii) determine the dominant coordination arrangement(s) in VC, iv) analyze how target populations participate in the VC, v) identify rules and regulations, vi) analyses the impact of rules on VC participants (including enforcement, rewards and sanctions), vii) analysis target sector knowledge and awareness of rules, norms and standards, and indentify key gaps, viii) analyze how information and services are provided internally through the VC and externally.
The success factors for strengthening smallholder-buyer business models within VC includes:
- Non-politically aligned organizations
- High quality service provision
- Social and enterprise strategies
- Network membership
- Focus on core business
- Low cost value additional through organizational innovations
-there is no “one-size-fits-all”
- Understand the needs and risks of agribusiness companies.
She mentioned, among the future challenges top priority should be nutrition-sensitive value chain and ensure sustainable food value chain in manner that is profitable throughout, has broad-based benefits for society, and does not permanently deplete natural resources.
Connecting the value chain is an important issue. For an example, she told about her personal experience that in cocoa farmers in rural community (in Vanuatu) of Indonesia did not know where their beans went and what is the test of chocolate. It is necessary to build partnership with public sectors. For instance, she found a new model in Indonesia was dairy farms produce yoghurt and introduce it to school program in their locality.
In a conclusion, Dr. Permani recommended:
· A whole of chain concept: upstream, midstream and downstream approach
· Broad focus of value development
· There no “one-size-fits-all” which means to highly consider the local culture context
· Constant dialogue with stakeholders to met industry demands
· Strong role of research and policy communities to alleviate constraints.
Summary of Presentation given by Prof. Dr. XiaoLin Wang.
Dr. XiaoLin Wang gave his presentation on “Policy on accurate Multidimensional poverty alleviation in China”. He highlighted that poverty in China is closely related with the concept of “Sustainable Development”. He began his discourse with the notion that if poverty is only attributed to US$1.25 per day, although the measurement issues will be easier, but the income concept does not successfully link with the idea of “sustainable development”. If we have to decrease the poverty rate especially in rural areas, we have to link together two concepts, “Sustainable development” and “Poverty Reduction”.
Along the lines of Sustainable development, Oxford University developed Multidimensional Poverty Index. That is one step closer to link Sustainable development and poverty reduction. Oxford university defined that health, education and living standard should be measured to calculate poverty and not only based on income or consumption. Although the larger Multidimensional Poverty index has 10 indicators, in short, health income and consumption captures the essence of poverty better than $1.25 per day. This multidimensional poverty index is an starting point to combine poverty reduction with sustainable development.
The Chinese meaning of poverty compromises two words “Pin” and “Kun”. While Pin is the income aspect Kun reflects social wellbeing. So, the Chinese thinking of poverty is not always associated with income only. Thus China government is more focused on sustainable development along with poverty reduction. People need to have social, natural and environment rights besides improving their income level to jump out from poverty level.
At the end participants raised question to understand “what is the meaning of poverty in their own language? Does it capture only income or other aspects like in Chinese language as well?” Most of the languages reflected that it is associated with wealth unlike in Chinese language.
Summary of Presenation given by Dr. Max Blanck.
Dr Max Blanck gave presentation on “Involving stakeholders in the food security policy debate: experiences from the Global forum on the food security and nutrition”. Dr Blanck begun his presentation by exploring why stakeholders are important in food security debate and who are stakeholders and who are not stakeholders? He gave several definitions to distinguish stakeholders from non stakeholders and discussed ways on how we can include different stakeholders in the food security policy debate. He emphasized that stakeholders are consulted while designing the whole process of policy and not just taken stakeholder consultation as a part of public relation. He gave examples of various countries from west Africa to central Asia on how FAO is engaging in stakeholder consultation.
Dr. Blanck emphasized that online consultation is also an effective way of engaging stakeholders and with less cost good arguments can be generated online. Thus, FAO has created the Global forum on food security and Nutrition where different issues related to food security can be discussed.
Participants basically raised question in the online whether it is possible to have onsight language translation facility as comments are in different language. It has been experienced that first few comments are in one language, say for example French, all other comments will be in French. So language translation facility can solve that problem to include other language speaking participants also.
Also, how do we make sure that the online opinion is representative of the people as only a fraction of population participates in it. Dr. Blanck replied that while they do not want to see online as representative, FAO is more concerned with the quality of the discussion.
Summary of the September 9th Training
Summary of Presentation given by Professor Guo Pei
In the first part of this session, Professor Guo Pei, Dean of the College of Economics and Management of China Agricultural University gave a long speech on financial support for poverty reduction in China. He states that agricultural financing remains a prevalent problem among all the developing nations. In order to further develop the rural areas to reduce poverty, the Chinese Government has promulgated a number of monetary and fiscal policies to support agricultural financing, which include discounted loans, microcredit, subsidies, etc. Although financing conditions for agriculture have significantly improved after introducing these policies, still more can be done in the future. Professor Guo’s speech was followed by an active discussion among all the young professionals present. Professionals abroad have also shown their particular interest in China’s agricultural financing policies.
Summary of the Presentation given by Dr. Robin Bourgeois.
After a coffee break, the second part of the session began, which features Dr. Robin Bourgeois, the Senior Officer at the Global Forum on Agricultural Research, and his training on getting young professionals thinking about the futures of agriculture. He emphasizes that young professionals are not only expected to predict the future, but also have foresight of the future. Foresight is one step beyond prediction, and it means to explore, intervene and influence. It does not only forecast the trends, but the breaks, ruptures, disruptions and discontinuities as well. Following Dr. Robin’s line of thinking, young professionals were divided into six groups to practice the use of foresight in six different scenarios, namely rural stations/ghettos, rural poles, rural continuums, rural niches, urban farming and farming cities. Each group engaged in a half-hour discussion and then exchanged their results with other groups. Dr. Robin’s training method of combining theory and practice was widely acclaimed by the participants.
In the end, Professor Fengying Nie, Director of the International Division of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, delivered the closing remarks of the training session. She hopes that through this training session, young professionals will not only learn knowledge and skills, but also some new ideas, new ways of thinking to inspire their agricultural career in the future. She also adds that the end of this training session is also a beginning, a beginning of the long friendship among all the participants from various countries. From this training onwards, young professionals can still learn from each other in their lifelong agricultural undertakings.
Brief Summary of September 8 and September 9 Training and Workshop
Summary of September 8th Training
Summary of Presentation given by Professor Dr. Xianping Jia “Regoverning agrifood market and transforming agricultural production in China: from smallholders to pluralistic large farms”
The 2nd day morning was begun with presentation by Professor Dr. Xiangping Jia from Northwest Agriculture and Forestry University on a very interesting topic relevant to “government policies in agrifood market and how it transformed agricultural production in China”. The presentation detailed about the contribution from smallholders to large supermarkets in this transition in the country. He mentioned that family farming has very effective role in agricultural production system in China as well as it has mixed opportunities and challenges to overcome. Opportunities: are as such ecological production process by nature, more efficient than hired labor, farmers organization is primarily subject to family governance, justice and equity is an issue of political argument and as whole small but beautiful. The Challenges are mainly transaction cost related to individual smallholder farmers are prohibited, new-wave of transformed agrofood market, farmers have to confront a rapidly changing technological environment in which substantial inefficiencies may arise, ecology-poverty trap.
He has shared two of his case studies in transformation of agriculture in China. Among them, firstly, he presented a case study on dairy crisis in China which was the addition of Melanin in milk and China marked it as the dark time dairy sector of China. During this crisis moment, Chinese government took actions in several ways, like:
-Subsidies in the farm level
-Changes in marketing policies, e.g. forbidding mobile brokers
-Changes in production policies, e.g. encouraged farmers to move from backyard to Cow Complex/hotel (traditional to formal)
In the 2nd case study, he shared about the initiative in China on fragmented agrifood chain. He mentioned that China has started cooperative farming in 2006. From a survey among 157 farmers in five provinces he found that only 23%of them engaged them in modern super markets, modern marketing channels shoed better choice for the farmers.
Agrofood chain is getting better coordination through farmers Professionals Cooperative (FPCs). However, the coordination of agrofood market through FPCs in China is maintained by impersonal rules and relational agreements. It is challenging to assure traceability and food safety. Brand becomes an important asset specificity of reputation for FPCs to achieve vertical coordination with contracts. Certification to food safety and quality standards, however, is not facilitating the vertical contracts. Chian`s farm Organizations are being backward integrated by agribusiness companies (of processing, trading, agr-chemical, etc.). Decision-making within FPCs in China is still decentralized to individual farmers. However, there is a trend that the decision rights of marketing rights tend to be collectively in right-value sector. The governance structure of FPCs inn transition China presents hybrid forms of both hierarchy and family farming, and there exist dynamic and multiple trajectories. Government policies (direct subsidies on initiation) are limited in promoting. In conclusion, family farm is till the dominant system of agricultural production in China. However, a variety of new forms of production are emerging, leading to pluralistic system. Family farms travels on multiple trajectories with local viability. China faces mixed opportunities and challenges to transform the smallholder farming to large one.
Summary of Presentation given by Dr. Risti Permani in Food Chain Development:
Next Presentation was given by Dr. Risti Permani who is from Global Food Studies, University of Adelaide has presented interesting research outcomes on how food value chain needs to be developed. In her presentation, she termed Marketing Good Policy as:
-Relevance
- Political economy
-Efficient
- partnership
-Regional view
- smallholders
-Information
- Whole of chain
In Indonesia, retail sales value growth increased from 2007 to 2012 which was highest in convenience store. She explained the current trend of dairy value chain in Indonesia. She added that we need increase in importance of standards in Indonesia, China and USA difference in standard, qualities and traceability may varied. It is also very important to know that there is always a lead firm and vertical coordination in supply chain. Form her personal experience, product differentiation is a interesting point in value chain like milk for pregnant women (maternal milk) which she meant that farmers should produce what consumers want to produce. She suggested to follow value chain demand pull rather than traditional supply push that may bring sustainability in the market. According to her presentation, the complexity of value chain depends on: the number of ways in which the commodity is being utilized (and thus transformed); whether it can be stored; how widely it is distributed (e.g. locally consumed vs export) and the number of different participants.
The most interesting change is shifting from domestically oriented to globally integrated. Among what essential changes needs are in coordination, attention in middle segment (hidden middle), Govt. vs. Govt. interactions and governance analysis. There are few steps in Value Chain (VC) Analysis: i) mapping value chain, ii) determine the demand and supply condition of the value chain, iii) determine the dominant coordination arrangement(s) in VC, iv) analyze how target populations participate in the VC, v) identify rules and regulations, vi) analyses the impact of rules on VC participants (including enforcement, rewards and sanctions), vii) analysis target sector knowledge and awareness of rules, norms and standards, and indentify key gaps, viii) analyze how information and services are provided internally through the VC and externally.
The success factors for strengthening smallholder-buyer business models within VC includes:
- Non-politically aligned organizations
- High quality service provision
- Social and enterprise strategies
- Network membership
- Focus on core business
- Low cost value additional through organizational innovations
-there is no “one-size-fits-all”
- Understand the needs and risks of agribusiness companies.
She mentioned, among the future challenges top priority should be nutrition-sensitive value chain and ensure sustainable food value chain in manner that is profitable throughout, has broad-based benefits for society, and does not permanently deplete natural resources.
Connecting the value chain is an important issue. For an example, she told about her personal experience that in cocoa farmers in rural community (in Vanuatu) of Indonesia did not know where their beans went and what is the test of chocolate. It is necessary to build partnership with public sectors. For instance, she found a new model in Indonesia was dairy farms produce yoghurt and introduce it to school program in their locality.
In a conclusion, Dr. Permani recommended:
· A whole of chain concept: upstream, midstream and downstream approach
· Broad focus of value development
· There no “one-size-fits-all” which means to highly consider the local culture context
· Constant dialogue with stakeholders to met industry demands
· Strong role of research and policy communities to alleviate constraints.
Summary of Presentation given by Prof. Dr. XiaoLin Wang.
Dr. XiaoLin Wang gave his presentation on “Policy on accurate Multidimensional poverty alleviation in China”. He highlighted that poverty in China is closely related with the concept of “Sustainable Development”. He began his discourse with the notion that if poverty is only attributed to US$1.25 per day, although the measurement issues will be easier, but the income concept does not successfully link with the idea of “sustainable development”. If we have to decrease the poverty rate especially in rural areas, we have to link together two concepts, “Sustainable development” and “Poverty Reduction”.
Along the lines of Sustainable development, Oxford University developed Multidimensional Poverty Index. That is one step closer to link Sustainable development and poverty reduction. Oxford university defined that health, education and living standard should be measured to calculate poverty and not only based on income or consumption. Although the larger Multidimensional Poverty index has 10 indicators, in short, health income and consumption captures the essence of poverty better than $1.25 per day. This multidimensional poverty index is an starting point to combine poverty reduction with sustainable development.
The Chinese meaning of poverty compromises two words “Pin” and “Kun”. While Pin is the income aspect Kun reflects social wellbeing. So, the Chinese thinking of poverty is not always associated with income only. Thus China government is more focused on sustainable development along with poverty reduction. People need to have social, natural and environment rights besides improving their income level to jump out from poverty level.
At the end participants raised question to understand “what is the meaning of poverty in their own language? Does it capture only income or other aspects like in Chinese language as well?” Most of the languages reflected that it is associated with wealth unlike in Chinese language.
Summary of Presenation given by Dr. Max Blanck.
Dr Max Blanck gave presentation on “Involving stakeholders in the food security policy debate: experiences from the Global forum on the food security and nutrition”. Dr Blanck begun his presentation by exploring why stakeholders are important in food security debate and who are stakeholders and who are not stakeholders? He gave several definitions to distinguish stakeholders from non stakeholders and discussed ways on how we can include different stakeholders in the food security policy debate. He emphasized that stakeholders are consulted while designing the whole process of policy and not just taken stakeholder consultation as a part of public relation. He gave examples of various countries from west Africa to central Asia on how FAO is engaging in stakeholder consultation.
Dr. Blanck emphasized that online consultation is also an effective way of engaging stakeholders and with less cost good arguments can be generated online. Thus, FAO has created the Global forum on food security and Nutrition where different issues related to food security can be discussed.
Participants basically raised question in the online whether it is possible to have onsight language translation facility as comments are in different language. It has been experienced that first few comments are in one language, say for example French, all other comments will be in French. So language translation facility can solve that problem to include other language speaking participants also.
Also, how do we make sure that the online opinion is representative of the people as only a fraction of population participates in it. Dr. Blanck replied that while they do not want to see online as representative, FAO is more concerned with the quality of the discussion.
Summary of the September 9th Training
Summary of Presentation given by Professor Guo Pei
In the first part of this session, Professor Guo Pei, Dean of the College of Economics and Management of China Agricultural University gave a long speech on financial support for poverty reduction in China. He states that agricultural financing remains a prevalent problem among all the developing nations. In order to further develop the rural areas to reduce poverty, the Chinese Government has promulgated a number of monetary and fiscal policies to support agricultural financing, which include discounted loans, microcredit, subsidies, etc. Although financing conditions for agriculture have significantly improved after introducing these policies, still more can be done in the future. Professor Guo’s speech was followed by an active discussion among all the young professionals present. Professionals abroad have also shown their particular interest in China’s agricultural financing policies.
Summary of the Presentation given by Dr. Robin Bourgeois.
After a coffee break, the second part of the session began, which features Dr. Robin Bourgeois, the Senior Officer at the Global Forum on Agricultural Research, and his training on getting young professionals thinking about the futures of agriculture. He emphasizes that young professionals are not only expected to predict the future, but also have foresight of the future. Foresight is one step beyond prediction, and it means to explore, intervene and influence. It does not only forecast the trends, but the breaks, ruptures, disruptions and discontinuities as well. Following Dr. Robin’s line of thinking, young professionals were divided into six groups to practice the use of foresight in six different scenarios, namely rural stations/ghettos, rural poles, rural continuums, rural niches, urban farming and farming cities. Each group engaged in a half-hour discussion and then exchanged their results with other groups. Dr. Robin’s training method of combining theory and practice was widely acclaimed by the participants.
In the end, Professor Fengying Nie, Director of the International Division of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, delivered the closing remarks of the training session. She hopes that through this training session, young professionals will not only learn knowledge and skills, but also some new ideas, new ways of thinking to inspire their agricultural career in the future. She also adds that the end of this training session is also a beginning, a beginning of the long friendship among all the participants from various countries. From this training onwards, young professionals can still learn from each other in their lifelong agricultural undertakings.