WEBINAR: Integration of smallholder farmers into global value chains: challenges & opportunities

17 February 2021. Integration of smallholder farmers into global value chains: challenges & opportunities

Global value chains have emerged rapidly and are widespread in food and agriculture. About one-third of global agricultural and food exports are traded within global value chains. Positive and negative effects can be amplified through GVCs. Knowledge and technology spillovers can address the trade-offs between the various economic, environmental and social objectives.

This webinar discussed trends in global value chains in agri-food markets, how GVCs can influence environmental and social outcomes, and about the challenges and opportunities to include smallholder farmers in GVCs.

• Vimlendra Sharan - Director, FAO North America
• George Rapsomanikis - Senior Economist, FAO
• Roger Norton - Norman Borlaug Institute for International Agriculture, and Texas A&M University
• Howard-Yana Shapiro - CIFOR-ICRAF & University of California Davis
• Friedel Huetz-Adams - Senior Researcher at SÜDWIND & co-author of the CocoaBarometer
• Koen Deconink - Agricultural Policy Analyst, OECD
• Moderator - Florian Doerr, Associate Professional Officer, FAO North America

Related: Last updated date 02/11/2020.

​FAO (2020). The State of Agricultural Commodity Markets 2020. Agricultural markets and sustainable development: Global value chains, smallholder farmers and digital innovations. Rome, FAO.

SOCO 2020 aims to discuss policies and mechanisms that promote sustainable outcomes – economic, social and environmental – in agricultural and food markets, both global and domestic. The analysis is organized along the trends and challenges that lie at the heart of global discussions on trade and development. These include the evolution of trade and markets; the emergence of global value chains in food and agriculture; the extent to which smallholder farmers in developing countries participate in value chains and markets; and the transformative impacts of digital technology on markets.

Along these themes, SOCO 2020 discusses policies and institutions that can promote inclusive economic growth and also harness markets to contribute towards the realization of the 2030 Agenda and its Sustainable Development Goals. The following background papers are available:

• Mapping global value chain (GVC) participation, positioning and vertical specialization in agriculture and food
• Innovative business models for small farmer inclusion
• Competition, market power, surplus creation and rent distribution in agri-food value chains
• The convergence of food diets: characterizing consumption patterns, food diversity, and the relationship to trade
• A quantitative analysis of trends in agricultural and food global value chains (GVCs)
• Digital technology and agricultural markets
• Agricultural value chains and social and environmental impacts: Trends, challenges, and policy options
• The effects of global value chain (GVC) participation on the economic growth of the agricultural and food sectors
• Assessing the impact of trade and other policies on global value chain (GVC) participation, positioning and vertical specialization in agriculture and food

The following complementary information is also available:
Download the In Brief

OECD (2021) Making Better Policies for Food Systems. 

OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/ddfba4de-en.

Food systems around the world face a triple challenge: providing food security and nutrition for a growing global population; supporting livelihoods for those working along the food supply chain; and contributing to environmental sustainability. Better policies hold tremendous promise for making progress in these domains. 

This report focuses on three questions. 

1. What has been the performance of food systems to date, and what role did policies play? 
2. How can policy makers design coherent policies across the triple challenge? 
3. And how can policy makers deal with frictions related to facts, interests, and values, which often complicate the task of achieving better policies?