From niche to mainstream: creating a policy environment for the proliferation of non-staple whole grains in South Africa.

Abstract

Over the centuries, non-staple agricultural commodities have been produced in limited quantities and are generally neglected yet bear a significant untapped potential. Preoccupation with staple grains has constrained the production of non-staple whole grains, and it remains fascinating to explore the barriers, and reluctance to shift toward non-staple crops. Admissibly, the contribution of these grains (sorghum, millet, oats, barley, and other wheat varieties) to the gross value of agriculture is hardly ever known. The nutritional and environmental benefits and other uses remain unexplored. To an extent, they are now mainly used for non-food purposes (brewery and industrial uses) contrary to being used as a source of food for human beings. The study assesses the functioning of the value chain of the non-staple wholegrains in South Africa. The study used both primary and secondary data to understand the functioning of the non-staple value chain. A qualitative method was employed to collect data from the provinces of the Western Cape (Overberg, West Coast), Gauteng (Johannesburg, Pretoria), and North West (Taung). For primary data, a snowballing sampling procedure was used to select 25 respondents involved in the non-staple grain value chain. These participants included smallholder farmers, processors/traders (silo-owners), private/public extension and information organisations, policy organisations, landowners, input suppliers and financers (insurers). While Semistructured questionnaires were used to conduct interviews. Desktop analysis was used to retrieve and analyse food policies relating to non-staple grains. A diagnostic research design was employed for analysis. Extension carousel, influence diagram, graph theory, policy map and Venn diagram were employed to analyse data, locate the leverage points, and track stakeholders’ influence on each other which inevitably affects the production scale of nonstaple wholegrains. Three specific objectives were explored in this study. The first specific objective was to assess the extent to which emerging farmers in the wholegrain economies are pressured or incentivised by policies and other actors in the network. The second was to determine points of tension within grains networks where the potential for the proliferation of emerging wholegrains economies is curtailed. The third specific objective3 was to identify the policies that can enable the proliferation of new wholegrain economies and their ability to successfully increase production and access to ensure environmental, nutritional and equity objectives are met. Results from the extension carousel demonstrated that the farmers’ participation in the type of grains they are involved in is influenced by the commodity supply and demand. Since market information is mainly about staple grains, this automatically create bias towards

participation in the staple grain than non-staple grains. The results revealed that access to land is a challenge for the smallholder, previously disadvantaged farmers who are given a smallsized land for grain production. The respondents indicated this is because the preference is given to livestock farmers and profit-orientated commodity growers. Some factors contributing to an unconducive environment for non-staple grain farmers include ever-increasing high input costs; lack of comprehensive support systems like incentives and subsidies to protect farmers from price fluctuations, and input unavailability due to domestic transportation difficulties and input shortages. Additionally, while there is a commitment to help farmers purchase or lease machinery and other technological equipment, it is either delivered late or unavailable from international suppliers. Other challenges that cause difficulties for non-staple wholegrain farmers and set them back are finance-related policies, grain pricing, and limited markets. Results illustrated that smallholder farmer’s access to finance is a challenge not only because they lack collateral to secure loans due to eligibility criteria, interest rates, and repayment plans (terms/ conditions). Findings also showed that grains like oats have a limited market (fewer buyers), whereas barley is climatically risky, which also causes farmers to be reluctant to produce non-staple grains. Results also revealed that stakeholders’ relationships maintain the status quo of being biased toward staple grains. This includes market agents sensitizing farmers to determine grain choice, production quantities, and market choice. Shortage of input (fertilisers, machinery) influence farmers to deprioritize conservation measures. Landowners influence grain farmers not to continue growing non-staple wholegrain and shift to staple export orientated commodities. Investors influence the developmental financers’ approach and conditions. The study concludes that landowners, investors, market agents, and financers influence farmers’ decision to grow non-staple wholegrain. The bottlenecks in the non-staple whole grain value chain were lack of support for non-staple grain farmers, limited market access, unfavourable terms and conditions of available funding opportunities, limited access to land, ill-structured coordination, communication, and transformation. Some policies that could strengthen the participation of non-staple whole grain farmers in the value include land policy, farm subsidy policy, tax incentive policy, funding framework, and equity policy. There is a need to realign and synergize the goals of the different actors to favour all grains equally. More attention needs to be given to neglected non-staple grains. Food-related policies need to be reviewed to reflect the importance of non-staple wholegrain.