Agri-food value chains play a crucial role in shaping sustainable food systems. By linking farmers, processors, distributors, and consumers, they ensure that food is produced, handled, and delivered efficiently while minimizing waste and environmental impacts. To build robust and equitable value chains it is essential to strengthen the infrastructure for trade, markets, and processing and to ensure that all the actors, including farmers, receive a fair remuneration.

Investment initiatives such as the Global Gateway Initiative of the European Commission help to advance connections across regions to make agri-food systems more resilient and support a thriving bioeconomy. 

Global Gateway 

Global Gateway is the European Union’s contribution to narrowing the global investment gap worldwide. Launched in 2021, it seeks to create transformational impact in the digital, climate and energy, education and research, health, and transport sectors across the world. The initiative aims to mobilize up to €300 billion in investments using a Team Europe approach, which brings together the EU, its Member States and their financial and development institutions.  

Global Gateway focuses on accelerating sustainable development through smart investments which consider the needs of partner countries, ensure lasting benefits for local communities, and respect the highest social and environmental standards in line with the EU’s interests and values: rule of law, human rights and international norms and standards. 

Well-functioning value chains are vital for achieving food security, improving nutrition, and sustaining the livelihoods of all food system actors.  

Projects under Global Gateway comprise transportation infrastructure projects, such as Lobito corridor that foster trade of agricultural products, projects that strengthen specific value chains, as e.g. for coffee or horticulture or programmes that build up production site, such as the rehabilitation of irrigation infrastructure. All projects can be found here. Examples on FAO projects supporting the EU Global Gateway 

Beyond projects the Global Gateway focuses on investment mobilisation. That means, partnering with financial institutions to mobilise private finances and support agri-food business. The EDFI Transforming Global Value Chains is a programme designed to support European Development Finance Institutions (EDFIs) and their private and public co-investors to scale up debt investments into local, regional and value chain companies and services in developing countries, including agri-business value chains (food, beverage and formulated complementary food). The Agriculture Financing Initiative is an innovative EU-funded blending facility supporting investments with a value chain approach focusing on smallholder’s inclusiveness and/or agri-business medium, small and micro enterprises (MSME). 

Value Chain Assessments for Development

Since 2016, the VCA4D project has conducted over 50 studies coving a wide range of products and countries. The purpose of value chain analysis is to provide decision makers with evidence-based information that relate to sustainable development strategies. The assessments are done with a standard methodology allowing to answer 4 framing questions:

1. What is the contribution of the VC to economic growth?
2. Is this economic growth inclusive?
3. Is the VC socially sustainable?
4. Is the VC environmentally sustainable?

The VC assessments are here.

VCA4D Synthesis Studies here.

Podcast by VCA4D on gender here.

Tools for policy makers to  build sustainable agri-food businesses 

Agri-food businesses are important generators of employment and income worldwide. Improving the sustainability of food value chains can benefit millions of poor households in developing countries.  

The FAO has developed approaches and tools to support the integration of smallholders and small and medium agribusinesses into value chains. The FAO also provides capacity building support to strengthen public-private collaboration on sustainable food value chains development, public food procurement, public-private partnerships, responsible contract farming, and improve market access for local products through Geographical Indications. More information 

The JRC has developed the Farming System Simulator for Developing Countries (FSSIM-Dev), a decision-making tools to provide independent evidence-based policy analysis in the areas of food and nutrition security and sustainable agriculture, specifically in sub-Saharan Africa. It aims to stimulate dialogue between scientists and policymakers, and to challenge them in better addressing the question of the ‘last mile’ between research results and concrete decision-making. 

Publications on "agri-food value chains"

Explore relevant publications on this topic from the database of the KC-FNS.