Can innovations in logistics and financial services benefit actors throughout agricultural value chains?

Ambler, Kate; Bloem, Jeffrey R.; Brauw, Alan de; and Maruyama, Eduardo. 2022. Can Innovations in logistics and financial services benefit actors throughout agricultural value chains? CGIAR Blog. https://www.cgiar.org/news-events/news/can-innovations-in-logistics-and-financial-services-benefit-actors-throughout-agricultural-value-chains/

Catalyzed by changes to global markets, urbanization, and other trends, agri-food value chains have been growing and changing rapidly in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) over the past few decades. Perhaps more than ever, even in the world’s poorest countries, farmers can access high-value consumer markets both domestically and abroad. Benefiting from access to these high-value markets, however, often requires that crops meet specific quality, reliability, and volume standards. However, smaller agri-food value chain actors—farmers, aggregators, traders, processors or others—may not operate at a large enough scale to make traditional investments required to meet those standards, therefore hindering their ability to participate in new, more remunerative markets.