Highlight: Rise of the African Consumer Class and its impact on African Food Systems

The Modernizing African Food System Consortium (MAFS)
aims to help African agricultural education and training (AET) institutions develop the technical skills and institutional capacity required to modernize African food systems.

Activities and Outputs: 

Collaborative teams from four major agricultural universities have produced a series of empirical background studies that provide evidence necessary for informing capacity development efforts in African AET institutions.

Agricultural Role Models: 

Career guidance from distinguished African agricultural professionals. Click here to view Role Model Directory and Featured Role Model.

Key Publications and Presentations:

• Partnerships for Capacity Development for Modernizing African Food Systems.
• Food System Dynamics in Africa: Anticipating and Adapting to Change
• Rise of the African Consumer Class

Consumers with greater choices are also likely to change their shopping venue from traditional markets to retailers. The current rapid development of retail markets in Africa is in response to a bigger market with increased buying power. Although the transformation in the retail sector is happening rapidly, currently 90% of all food sold in Africa is still bought in traditional markets. The question arises whether the robust development of the retail sector will make the traditional African market obsolete. Projections have shown that this is not likely to be the case but that the prevalence of traditional markets will decrease from the currently handling 90% of food sold to around 65%.

Related Publications and Presentation by Consortium Member Scholars

• The Rise of an African Consumer Class: Patterns, Opportunities, and Challenges. June 17, 2014. By David Tschirley, Michael Dolislager, Lulama Traub, Fred Meyer and Francis Ejobi.  Presentation at the IFAMA 2014 Conference, Special Session on “The Rise of the African Consumer Class” Cape Town, South Africa
• Tschirley, D., T. Reardon, M. Dolislager, and J. Snyder. 2014. The rise of a middle class in East and Southern Africa: Implications for food system transformation.Helsinki: WIDER (World Institute for Development Economics Research,) Working Paper 2014/119
• Scheltema et al.  2014.  Evolving Skill Needs in the Food System of East and Southern Africa:  Results from Agribusiness Company Interviews.  MAFS Working Paper No. 11.

Call for Submissions: 

The Journal of Agribusiness in Developing and Emerging Economies (JADEE) is requesting original contributions for a special issue entitled “Modernizing Africa Food Systems: Implications for Agricultural Education and Training (AET) in Africa”.

MAFS Seed Funding: International Fund for Agricultural Development