Financial Patterns at the Last Mile of the Farm to Fork Value Chain

Source: http://library.wur.nl/WebQuery/wurpubs/454661

This value web illustrates the last mile of the farm to fork agricultural value chain in the state of Maharashtra, India. We’d mapped it during our project/s for the Dutch government back in mid 2013, where we’d introduced human centered design thinking for sustainable agricultural value chain development. Subsequently, I led a multidisciplinary team conducting fieldwork in rural Kenya, in order to compare and contrast the last mile in the African context.

As mentioned previously, while the details of seasonality and crops may change due to geography, the essential foundation and framework of the farm’s financial management behaviour remained the same. And, while the actors and roles in the value web may shift and change between rural India and rural Kenya, the essence, here, too, remains the same. There are intermediaries and brokers, transporters and aggregators, and wholesalers and retailers, along with agrovets and extension agents. Everyone has a part to play in the interdependent web of value exchange, based on trusted relationships for the most part.

Therefore, their cash flows and income streams too, are closely linked to the harvest seasons and the crops, just like the farmers‘. In fact, Indian business magazines go as far as to assess the health of each year’s monsoon season in order to attempt forecasts on the annual peak of consumer activity – the post harvest festival season in the October-November period. They recognize the linkages and networks that connect the rural and urban markets, and the ripple effects of the quality of the year’s harvest. It would not be inaccurate to say that the degree of impact and influence is proportional to two related factors – the proportion of GDP from agriculture and related activities; and, the percentage of the country’s population dependent on agriculture and related activities.

Market town finances

In addition to the linkage, we have observed financial management behaviours among traders, and not just those dealing in agricultural commodities or fresh produce, that resemble those on the farm.

The factors that impact the management of working capital and income streams – uncertainty of amount and the timing of its arrival – remain the same, as do the majority of the characteristics of the operating environment, such as infrastructure and systems. A trader dealing in new clothes also sees seasonal differences in her sales, and, unlike a trader in foodstuffs, is also more likely to see greater impact of a low season as people go without the discretionary purchase of a new shirt. Thus, traders must also manage the volatility, uncertainty, and seasonality of their addressable market, and their customer base, and their cash flows and income streams accordingly. We see the impact of this in their business development strategies, and that will be the subject of the next post.

Furthermore, in market towns and border markets, unlike urban metros with a myriad of occupations, the health of the agricultural season will impact everyone in the ecosystem not just the traders themselves. The internetworked last mile of the farm to fork value web closely links the health of the harvests with that of the rural and peri-urban economies.

Collected Works
Work in Progress: An Introduction to the Informal Economy’s Commercial Environment – Links to organized series of articles on the topic

Trading economics: a new theoretical system

From the Financial Times, a snippet from a guest post by Wang Zhenying, director-general of the research and statistics department at the PBoC’s Shanghai head office and vice chairman of the Shanghai Financial Studies Association, summarising the arguments in his new Chinese-language textbook on economics.

“Trading economics” is one new theory emerging against this backdrop. Mainstream economics deduces the macro whole by extrapolating from the behavior of individual “representative agents”. Trading economics replaces this with a systematic and comprehensive analysis approach. It stresses that in an interconnected world, the interaction between trading subjects is the fundamental driving force behind the operation, development, and evolution of economic systems.

Trading economics first analyses the actions of trading subjects, then builds a dynamic trading network among trading subjects through trading relations, and finally reveals the operational rules of the economic system. The rules could be examined from two perspectives: short-term and long-term. The business cycle and price changes are examined in the short-term perspective. The long-term perspective would focus on the rules of economic evolution as well as changes in technology, knowledge, system, and network.

Throughout the history of economics, trading economics is the first and foremost theory to incorporate all economic phenomena into an all-encompassing logical system. It changes the long-standing scenario in the economics field, that is, the macro was separated from the micro, and the short-term from the long-term. Trading economics is a revolution of mainstream economic theories and is bound to exert a great and profound impact on all areas, including economic theoretical research and practical application.

NB: I thoroughly enjoyed reading this summary and expect to contextualize future research with some of the theoretical frameworks as presented here.

Launching Our Digital Documentation Project: Ibadan’s Tailors, Traders, and Textiles by Nigerian/British artist Folake Shoga

After months of hard work, I am very honoured and proud to announced our new digital documentation project by my friend Folake Shoga, a Nigerian/British multidisciplinary artist with more than three decades of experience.

She went on a journey of discovery through the twists and turns of the informal value web that holds together West Africa’s famed textiles and fashionably styled culture.

Her window to this world is centered around Ibadan, Nigeria, and she takes us through an illustrated, personally narrated documentary that spans the experience of getting a new dress, from choosing the right fabric, all the way through building a fashion brand.

Come and join us for this fascinating peek behind the scenes! You can also find this unique photo-documentary again on my portfolio page.

An economy of trust

Cash on credit is the caption given to this cartoon by the BBC. Neighbourhood groceries are offering their regular customers cash advances in addition to bread and milk.

While the media is filled with a plethora of stories of heartbreak, my own suspicion is that we’ll discover the resilience of the cash intensive informal sector lies in the relationships between people, once the hubbub has died down.

In rural Africa, livestock and produce markets exemplify local, social, mobile ecosystem

Mama Mercy taking a call during our visit to her farm. Her new cow is brown & white. April 2013 Kenya

If we can find and support the key enablers of the shamba’s day to day needs, I believe we could assist with increasing the pace of market reach and spread (new market creation). I suspect that we will find patterns identifying these 4 or 5 key actors – a transport owner/manager; a reputable agrovet; something related to animal feed or health but a stall in the market run by an informal trader with a regular market town circuit; someone who overlaps showing up in livestock markets and produce markets (brokers? transporters? aggregators?) – and people matching this description will show up in most regional population centers.

The next question would be whether this “hyper local market” can be assisted by any technological intervention?

I remember discussing something like this with Erik Hersman about 5 years ago, maybe 6 – his words were hyper local and we were musing upon the commercial application of the Ushahidi engine as a hyper local classifieds a la what @chiefkariuki has already begun doing, btw of note.

What are our user interface design constraints, conditions and criteria?