OECD, April 2018. 32 pages
This paper quantifies and describes the structure of employment in the food economy across four broad segments of activities:
- agriculture,
- processing,
- marketing and
- food-away-from home.
It examines some of the emerging spatial implications, including rural-urban linkages and rural employment diversification, which are related to the transformations that are reshaping this sector. It then puts forward policy considerations for designing targeted employment strategies that leverage the links between agricultural productivity, off-farm employment and rural-urban areas and that ensure inclusiveness, particularly for youth and women.
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Also available in: French
Extracts:
The food economy is the biggest employer in West Africa. The various activities involved in producing food, from the farm to processing, packaging, transporting, storing, distributing and retailing, account for 66% of total employment, or 82 million jobs. While the majority of these jobs (78%) are in agriculture, off-farm employment in food-related manufacturing and service activities is growing in number and share. (page 5)
Food-away-from-home activities which include street food, restaurants and other catering services, generate 10% of overall off-farm food economy employment, with much higher shares in some urban areas. This shift in labour demand will increase as the food system, including agriculture, continues to specialise and diversify, providing employment opportunities in local food economies. (page 5)
Employment patterns in the food economy are primarily driven by local food demand. At the regional level, the vast majority of food consumption comes from local food production, with food imports representing only 8% of total food expenditure. Food imports and exports also generate employment in the food system. Imports of unprocessed or lightly processed foods such as cereals generate employment in processing and marketing segments, while food exports generate agricultural employment and, to a lesser extent, food processing and food marketing (transport, storage and logistics) employment. (page 8)
The three off-farm food economy segments – food marketing, food processing and food away from home – account for 22% of total food economy employment at the regional level. Although the distribution of employment in the off-farm segments varies by country, there is a clear pattern which shows that food marketing is the largest off-farm segment. (page 10)
The food processing sector is the largest manufacturing sub-sector in terms of employment in the region. Although it accounts for just 5% of food economy employment, it represents 30% of total secondary sector employment. (page 11)
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Also available in: French
Extracts:
The food economy is the biggest employer in West Africa. The various activities involved in producing food, from the farm to processing, packaging, transporting, storing, distributing and retailing, account for 66% of total employment, or 82 million jobs. While the majority of these jobs (78%) are in agriculture, off-farm employment in food-related manufacturing and service activities is growing in number and share. (page 5)
Food-away-from-home activities which include street food, restaurants and other catering services, generate 10% of overall off-farm food economy employment, with much higher shares in some urban areas. This shift in labour demand will increase as the food system, including agriculture, continues to specialise and diversify, providing employment opportunities in local food economies. (page 5)
Employment patterns in the food economy are primarily driven by local food demand. At the regional level, the vast majority of food consumption comes from local food production, with food imports representing only 8% of total food expenditure. Food imports and exports also generate employment in the food system. Imports of unprocessed or lightly processed foods such as cereals generate employment in processing and marketing segments, while food exports generate agricultural employment and, to a lesser extent, food processing and food marketing (transport, storage and logistics) employment. (page 8)
The three off-farm food economy segments – food marketing, food processing and food away from home – account for 22% of total food economy employment at the regional level. Although the distribution of employment in the off-farm segments varies by country, there is a clear pattern which shows that food marketing is the largest off-farm segment. (page 10)
The food processing sector is the largest manufacturing sub-sector in terms of employment in the region. Although it accounts for just 5% of food economy employment, it represents 30% of total secondary sector employment. (page 11)
Overall, food economy jobs represent 35% of total urban employment. Food marketing and food-away-from-home account for 57% of all urban food economy jobs. These jobs are closely linked to the size of food markets and vary strongly across countries. (page 15)
An important aspect to acknowledge is that the links between food economy activities (food value chains), which provide the connection between production and final consumption, also reflect the links between rural and urban areas. These spatial linkages across the rural-urban space, between rural areas and small towns and secondary cities, are important elements in food economy development and rural transformation and need to be better understood in order to develop employment opportunities. (page 20)
The absence of data hinders the study of labour market dynamics in the region and limits the capacity of governments and policy makers to anticipate future transformations and to inform employment policies at local and national levels. (page 24)
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