GCRF Inclusive Societies: Innovation and Inclusive Industrialisation in Agro-Processing: A Comparative Study of South Africa and Tanzania

在过去十年中，许多非洲国家在恢复工业政策的同时，更加注重促进农业加工，即在收获和最终消费之间的粮食增值活动。这是因为学术界和政策制定者普遍认为农业加工在推动包容性工业增长方面具有极高的潜力，从而创造就业机会并减轻贫困。农产品加工一般是进入工业活动的劳动密集度高、技术密集度低的切入点，因此为中小型企业进入工业活动提供了机会。它还与支持发展中国家许多最贫穷人口生计的初级农业生产有着密切的联系。目前，利用农产品加工也很重要，因为撒哈拉以南非洲对加工食品的需求正在飙升。然而，创建包容性价值链，使小生产者能够参与进来，并使他们能够抓住这一机会，是一项艰巨的政策挑战。中小企业往往面临很高的进入壁垒，或缺乏技术能力，无法按照超市等新的城市零售商所要求的质量、速度和可靠性交付货物。这项研究旨在应对这一挑战，并提出新的见解，有助于改善农业加工的产业政策。具体而言，它将研究政府如何促进中小企业融入食品价值链，并帮助它们提升技术能力。它这样做，使用对比案例研究方法，以审查在南非和坦桑尼亚的玉米碾磨，柑橘类水果和乳制品的农业加工价值链的政治经济学。这两种截然不同的农产品加工背景之间的明显差异有可能使人们对包容性工业化的政治经济制约因素产生独特的见解。这项研究的目的有三个方面：第一，描述和对比决定坦桑尼亚和南非农业加工创新和包容性的体制特征。第二，发展农产品加工的比较政治经济学，解释通过有针对性的产业政策促进中小企业能力的挑战，第三，分析与政策有关的影响，以支持国家和区域一级的产业政策制定。该项目是爱丁堡大学非洲研究中心（CAS），坦桑尼亚智库经济和社会研究基金会（ESRF）以及约翰内斯堡大学竞争，监管和经济发展中心（CCRED）研究人员之间的跨学科合作。研究人员将通过对两国柑橘、玉米和乳制品价值链的深入研究来实现这一目标。这将涉及对中小企业农产品加工公司的调查，以及与政府、私营部门和民间社会的主要信息提供者的访谈。这将利用该小组在政治经济学、经济学和科学技术研究方面的跨学科理论和方法专门知识。这项研究将有助于改进南非和坦桑尼亚的农产品加工产业政策举措，为政府如何最好地支持农产品加工中小企业的融入和技术升级提供证据。它的学术成果将推动发展中国家产业政策和公司一级技术能力的政治经济学方面的越来越多的研究。

The return of industrial policy to many African countries over the past decade has been accompanied by increased focus on promoting agro-processing, the value-adding activities for food between harvest and final consumption. This is because agro-processing is widely recognised among academics and policymakers as having exceptionally high potential to propel inclusive industrial growth which creates jobs and relieves poverty. Agro-processing is generally a high labour-intensity and low technology-intensity entry point to industrial activity, and therefore provides an opportunity for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to enter industrial activities. It also has strong links to primary agricultural production which supports the livelihoods of many of the poorest people in developing countries. Harnessing agro-processing is additionally important at present because demand for processed food is soaring across sub-Saharan Africa. However, creating inclusive value chains which integrate small producers and enable them to seize this opportunity is a difficult policy challenge. SMEs often face high barriers to entry, or lack the technological capabilities to deliver goods with the quality, speed and reliability demanded by new urban retailers like supermarkets. This research seeks to address this challenge and produce new insights which help improve industrial policy for agro processing. Specifically, it will investigate how governments can foster the inclusion of SMEs in food value chains and help them upgrade their technological capabilities. It does so using a contrasting case study method to examine the political economy of agro-processing value chains for maize milling, citrus fruit and dairy products in South Africa and Tanzania. The stark differences between these two very different contexts for agro-processing has the potential to generate unique insights into the political economy constraints on inclusive industrialization. The aims of this research are threefold: first, to describe and contrast the institutional features that determine innovation and inclusion in agro-processing in Tanzania and South Africa. Second, to develop a comparative political economy of agro-processing that explains the challenges to promoting SME capabilities through targeted industrial policies, and third, to distil policy-relevant implications to support industrial policy formulation at the national and regional level. The project is an inter-disciplinary collaboration between researchers the University of Edinburgh's Centre of African Studies (CAS), the Tanzanian think-tank the Economic and Social Research Foundation (ESRF) and the Centre for Competition, Regulation and Economic Development (CCRED) at the University of Johannesburg. The researchers will fulfill the aims with in-depth research on citrus, maize and dairy value chains in both countries. This will involve surveys of SME agro-processing firms and interviews with key informants in government, the private sector and civil society. This will draw on the team's interdisciplinary theoretical and methodological expertise from political economy, economics and science and technology studies. The research will contribute to improving agro-processing industrial policy initiatives in South Africa and Tanzania by providing evidence on how governments can best support the inclusion and technological upgrading of agro-processing SMEs. Its academic outputs will advance a growing body of sholarship on the political economy of industrial policy and firm-level technological capabilities in developing countries.