المنتدى العالمي المعني بالأمن الغذائي والتغذية

Hello everyone,

Boosting the value of industrial development

This has been another interesting FSN debate, highlighting as-it-does one of the most under-appreciated traditional food sectors - pulses & legumes; plants that have sustained people and their livestock since the dawn of agricultural history. It is useful to develop and take advantage of an 'International Year' given the additional focus that this will bring with the flow-on investment of resourceful people with their intellect, technologies and financial investments.

My contribution centres upon the third of the original questions that were provided with which to stimulate the debate:

What are the main challenges that farmers in your country face with regard to the production of pulses? How should these be addressed?

In a brief desk-top study that I undertook to explore the constraints and opportunities for developing more efficient value chains for pulses and legumes in the countries of Southern Africa I summarized my findings as follows:

Given the paucity of time available with which to search, collate and analyse findings, the report briefly focuses upon opportunities for national food legumes industries in Southern Africa in the context of regional issues. On the one hand – there are the industrial realities, expanding populations and per capita consumption of food legumes that is slowly declining, but not sufficient to negate imports which continue to climb. And, on the other hand, there is lack of productivity, yields that have remained unchanged for >25 years, lack of public and private sector support and familiarity with legume crops/foods that borders on neglect. Every country in the region has a value chain for food legumes, but they have become entrenched within traditional life such that they are barely recognized for the potential that exists – and thus this potential remains under-exploited. There is no discernible regional value chain. The South African economy dominates the region; and the nine other countries included within the study work largely in partnership with and/or through South African services, expertise, facilities and/or finance in support of regional development – and if not directly, then indirectly.

There is only so much that can be achieved within an FSN debate of this kind, but if the findings of my study can be further developed by national decision-makers (and others) and, in particular, with use of the action plan proposed, then the study will have had merit. Given the internal nature of studies of this kind, the report that was produced should be considered as 'unpublished' (see attachement).

As a final point to my contribution, I draw your attention to the threats (from the SWOT analysis model) that typify some of the constraints that impact upon the industrial development of these crops; they are: 

•  Lack of investment in training qualified people, with provision of infrastructure and with establishment of reliable industrial producer institutions; industry slow to establish support services.
•  Lack of industrial leadership in regional countries; and for regional production.

More food for thought then. 

Peter Steele

Agricultural Engineer

Rome, Italy

19 June 2016