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Limits of the New Green Revolution for Africa: Reconceptualising gendered agricultural value chains
Author(s) -
Gengenbach Heidi,
Schurman Rachel A.,
Bassett Thomas J.,
Munro William A.,
Moseley William G.
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
the geographical journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.071
H-Index - 64
eISSN - 1475-4959
pISSN - 0016-7398
DOI - 10.1111/geoj.12233
Subject(s) - coproduction , green revolution , agriculture , value (mathematics) , value chain , order (exchange) , political ecology , economics , market access , food security , politics , economic growth , business , sociology , political science , geography , marketing , supply chain , social science , archaeology , finance , machine learning , computer science , law
In order to address food insecurity, the New Green Revolution for Africa ( GR 4A) promotes tighter integration of African smallholder farmers, especially women, into formal markets via value chains to improve farmers’ input access and to encourage the sale of crop surpluses. This commentary offers a theoretical and practical critique of the GR 4A model, drawing on early findings from a five‐year study of value chain initiatives in Burkina Faso, Côte d'Ivoire, and Mozambique. It highlights the limitations of a model that views heightened market interactions as uniformly beneficial for smallholder farmers. We challenge the notion that there is a broadly similar and replicable process for the construction of markets and the development of gender‐sensitive value chains in all recipient countries. Instead we build upon the feminist network political ecology and coproduction literatures to conceptualise value chains as complex assemblages co‐produced by a broad set of actors, including socially differentiated farmers.