HORTICULTURAL SUPPLY CHAINS

The key to enabling small producers to access export markets and to meet the needs of buyers and consumers is to understand:

• that vegetables intended for an export market must pass along a complex supply chain from the farm where they are produced right along the supply chain to the consumer;
• that a breakdown at any point in this supply chain can easily cause the whole system to collapse.

Each link in the supply chain plays an important and interconnected role:

• the farmers who produce the vegetables;
• the buyers, packers and exporters who consolidate the smallholders' produce and transport it to distribution points for the European market;
• the importers, distributors, wholesalers, and retailers in the consumer country who buy, distribute and sell the vegetables to consumers;
• the consumers who buy the vegetables from supermarkets or greengrocers and eat them.

There are clearly external factors and organizations which influence the life and health of the supply chain and affect the smooth flow of vegetables through the system:

• weather conditions (rainfall, sunshine, floods, storms) which cannot be controlled but are essential factors affecting productivity and logistics;
• agricultural suppliers whose products (seeds, fertilizers, agrochemicals) are needed for increasing production and protecting the farmers' products;
• financing institutions which are needed to enable producers to obtain and apply external inputs to their crops;
• intermediaries who help the smallholders to organize themselves and work harmoniously with people at other points in the chain.

Each of these participants, both those central to the chain itself and those who affect it from outside, have roles to perform on which depend the health and smooth running of the whole system. This guide spells out the roles of each participant and provides guidance on how they can best work together.