J Intl Cooper Agric Dev 2019; 16: 71–73

Journal ofInternational Cooperation for
Agricultural Development

JISNAS-WUR Session 2018 Report

JISNAS-WUR Session 2018 Report
Hiroshi Ehara1) and Arjo Rothuis2)International Center for Research and Education in Agriculture (ICREA) / Applied Social System Institute of Asia (ASSIA),
Nagoya University, Nagoya, Japan2)International Cooperation Asia, Wageningen University & Research (WUR), Wageningen, The Netherlands
1)

Received March 13, 2019 Accepted March 16, 2019

SDG-Conference ‘Towards Zero Hunger: Partnerships
for Impact’ was held from 30th to 31st August 2018 atWageningen University & Research, in Wageningen, TheNetherlands. The SDG conference brought together over700 participants from across the globe including representatives from governments, academics, civil society and theprivate sector in Wageningen. They were all part of thevaried program of the conference.
On this occasion, we held the joint session of JapanIntellectual Support Network in Agricultural Sciences(JISNAS) and Wageningen University & Research(WUR) on the theme of “Inclusive Value ChainDevelopment”. JISNAS and WUR signed a Memorandumof Understanding at Kyuushu University Tokyo Officein June 2017 for the establishment of a long-term cooperation aimed at strengthening international cooperationin agricultural research and higher education. Prior to theestablishment of MOU, Rothuis, Manager, International
Cooperation Asia, WUR participated in the 5th Japan
International Cooperation Agency (JICA)-JISNAS Forumon Human Resource Development in Agricultural Sector
for SDGs at JICA Yokohama in December 2016 and gave
a talk about their efforts to SDGs at WUR. JISNAS andWUR held the Joint Seminar on integrated pest management (IPM) and the workshop on improvement of agricultural research and its application in Myanmar in February
2018 (JISNAS-WUR-YAU Joint Seminar and Workshop
2018 “IPM Seminar and Workshop on Improvement ofAgricultural Research and Application”, 3rd-4th February
2018, Yezin Agricultural University (YAU), Naypyidaw,Myanmar). The JISNAS-WUR Session 2018 was our 3rdcollaborative meeting.
The title of this session was “Promoting addedvalue production by smallholder farmers through thedevelopment of robust market-driven supply chains in anindustry-community-academia collaboration”. There aremany trials to develop value chains in Africa, but havethe majority of smallholder farmers left behind? How
does value chain development make it more beneficial tosmallholder farmers? In this session, four topics relating
to the development of robust market-driven supply chainsin an industry-community-academia collaboration andthe promotion of added-value production by smallholder
farmers were delivered from Japan and Netherlands in anoral session. Then, a panel discussion with three panelists
followed the oral session.
The program of JISNAS-WUR Session 2018 is asshown in Table 1.
At the beginning of the JISNAS-WUR Session 2018,
Kazuo Ogata, Chair of JISNAS remarked about purposeof the session and JISNAS-WUR collaboration. As
the first speaker, Jiro Aikawa, Senior Advisor, JICA,talked “Introduction of SHEP (Smallholder Horticulture
Empowerment and Promotion) approach as an innovativeextension method in Africa”. Better extension service forsmall scale farmers in developing countries is key forachieving SDGs such as poverty reduction, job creation,and access to higher education for kids, etc. SHEP wasdeveloped by JICA’s technical cooperation project
started in Kenya in 2016 as one of the agriculture extension

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Table 1. The program of JISNAS-WUR Session 2018
Program 1. Oral Session
Chairpersons: Keisuke Ito, Director, Rural Development Department, JICA, Japan			
Chiharu Nakashima, Professor, Mie University, Japan
Introductory remarks: Kazuo Ogata, Chair of JISNAS / Professor, Kyushu University
Topic 1: Introduction of SHEP Approach as an innovative extension method in Africa		
Jiro Aikawa, Senior Advisor, JICA, Japan
Topic 2: Empowering farmers to become partners in robust market-driven supply chains: an alternativeevaluation method for assessing value chain dynamics		
Jos Verstegen, Senior Researcher Entrepreneurship, WUR, The Netherlands		
Kazuhisa Goto, Liaison Scientist, WUR, The Netherlands / NARO, Japan
Topic 3: Value adding technology and its application system		
Tadashi Yoshihashi, Senior Researcher, JIRCAS, Japan
Topic 4: Agricultural extension activities by Tokyo University of Agriculture; From greening of arid
land to nutritional improvement in Africa		
Yoichi Sakata, Professor, Tokyo University of Agriculture, Japan
Program 2. Panel discussion
Moderators: Shuichi Asanuma, Board Member, International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) /Senior Adviser, JICA, Japan		Arjo Rothuis, Account Manager Asia, Wageningen International, WUR, The Netherlands
Panelists:					Jos Verstegen, Senior Researcher Entrepreneurship, WUR, The Netherlands
Kazuhisa Goto, Liaison Scientist, WUR, The Netherlands / NARO, Japan
Hiroshi Ehara, Professor, Nagoya University, Japan

approaches and gives concrete solutions for these basic
issues on extension as well as realizing market orientedagriculture. This approach composed of series of activities with essential steps: the most important activities aremarket survey and making crop calendar done by farmers
themselves with support of extension staff. Farmers can beaware of market needs and make decision which crops theyare going to grow based on the results of the survey. In orderfor farmers to develop their capacity, SHEP introduces atheory called “Self Determination Theory”. People possess
three basic needs; autonomy, competence and relatedness.
Activities based on SHEP Approach as extension services
are well designed to satisfy both Economic and Psychology
aspects. Many positive impacts such as income generation,
improvement of livelihood, re-investment for better farming, etc. can be seen in various countries.
Jos Verstegen, Senior Researcher Entrepreneurship,
WUR gave a talk as duo presentation with Kazuhisa Goto,
Liaison Scientist, WUR / National Agriculture and Food
Research Organization (NARO), about “Empowering
farmers to become partners in robust market-driven supply chains: an alternative evaluation method for assessing
value chain dynamics”. The evaluation research presented
at the SDG conference was conducted in the context of the2SCALE (Towards Sustainable Clusters in Agribusinessthrough Learning in Entrepreneurship) program which wasdeveloped in sub-Saharan Africa and coordinated by IFDC.
The goal of 2SCALE is to improve rural livelihoods and72 J Intl Cooper Agric Dev 2019food and nutrition security in nine African countries. To
this end 2SCALE forges public-private partnerships, withprivate partners varying from local producer organizations
and SMEs to large-scale companies such as seed companies, processors, and trading companies. The approach isbased on (1) formation of agribusiness clusters - local networks between smallholder farmers themselves, and withservice providers - to improve competitive intelligence andbargaining power, (2) integrating the agribusiness clusters
in value chains, with backward linkages to input supply
chains and forward linkages to food supply chains, and (3)enabling fair business environments with better access toinformation and finance, in particular for the weaker actors.
In the project Wageningen Economic Research developedand tested a so-called Value Chain Laboratory (VC-Lab)
for the assessment of two 2Scale initiatives: (i) sorghum
value chain in Meru County, Kenya and (ii) soybean
value chain in Tamale, Ghana. The VC-Lab consists ofthree steps: (i) Desk research and Value Chain Mapping,(ii) Value Chain Games involving 2Scale farmers andnonparticipating farmers, and (iii) Agent Based Modelling.
The study provides insights into the trust levels of farmers,
their risk perception and collective action strategies, andprovides scenarios for maximal impact. Data gathering andanalyses took place in 2015 and 2016. In their presentation,
the gaming approach and reveal some of its results werebriefly explained.
Tadashi Yoshihashi, Senior Researcher, Japan

International Research Center for Agricultural Sciences(JIRCAS), talked about “Value adding technology and its
application system”. MAFF of Japan, had set “Global Food
Value Chain (GFVC) policy”, which aims to support activities delivering higher values and increase profits for eachstakeholder from production to consumption in food valuechain. Activities on food value chain improvement underJIRCAS research project in line with GFVC policy, andConsultative Group on International Agricultural Research(CGIAR) research program were presented to show theefforts to transfer Asian experiences to Africa toward
upgrading food value chains. Traditional rice processing
technology, “pop-rice”, roasting rough rice to puff ricekernel was used for ornament in Japan and Thailand, andsweets in Vietnam and India, and almost disappeared in
the region. However, the technology requires less equipment, and rough rice with rather higher moisture content
can directly use as material. Also, simple heat source canbe used for the process. Since less equipment and process
are required for the technology, it might be suitable foron-farm process in African countries, especially avoiding
quality losses during rice milling and postharvest procedureand obtaining value-added pregelatinized rice kernel. On
the other hand, white guinea yam (Dioscorea rotundata)
which is one of the important regional staples in West
Africa, can be categorized as “orphan crop”, therefore
there is remaining potential in productivity and quality
improvements. Utilization of local genetic diversities wasrequired, however lacks tools to evaluate their properties
hinders effective elite lines selection. Since East Asia has
experience to utilize yam species (Dioscorea spp.), we hadtransferred various quality evaluation methodologies as
white guinea yam selection tools. Both cases show possible
knowledge transfers by accelerating partnerships among
African and Asian stakeholders.
Yoichi Sakata, Professor, Tokyo University of Agriculture,
introduced “Agricultural extension activities by Tokyo
University of Agriculture (NODAI); From greening of arid
land to nutritional improvement in Africa”. Tokyo NODAI
has recognized that the issues of food production and safety
should be discussed and solved on a global scale; therefore,“return man to the farm of the world” is our ultimate educational and research goal. To achieve this, we are currently
conducting various types of extension activities relatedto SDGs (Goal 2; End hunger, achieve food security andimproved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture)in the world: 1) Cacao production for smart consumer byagroforestry system from Amazon, Brazil; 2) Improvementof livelihood and health conditions of Tongan people by theeffective utilization and new processed products of breadfruit; 3) Project on promoting sustainable agricultural conditions for poverty reduction in Kampong Cham Province,Cambodia; 4) Research project on advanced and sustainable
water utilization associated with greening potential evaluation in Djibouti, Africa; 5) Stimulating use of local foodresources in Africa to improve nutrition and livelihoods: A
new integrated food consumption assessment tool for better
decision making in nutrition interventions. Taken together
with the experiences we obtained from these extensions,
he proposed to discuss what universities could promote todevelop inclusive value chains in developing countries.
In the panel discussion followed the oral session, thepoints were what were the lessons learned from eachpresentation in terms of technology dissemination tosmallholder farmers in promoting added-value production
by them through the development of robust market-driven
supply chains in an industry-community-academia collaboration? Three questions described below were put up
by the moderators. 1) Can small holder farmers respondadequately to the needs of market-driven supply chains?
2) How feasible is technology dissemination throughvalue-chain development? 3) What is the role of academia
in promoting value-chain development? After commentsfrom the panelists were delivered, we confirmed some gists
as follows: i) markets should be considered first before
technology development; ii) farmers’ motivation will be
more important than technology; iii) farming has to be
seen as a business; iv) use of games may be valuable inscientific evaluation studies; v) trust among value chain
actors is a key driver of success; vi) quality of agricultural
products requires scientific evaluation.
We shared the former experiences of smallholder farmers’ income generation through value chains developmentin Asia and Latin America as well as the recent examples
of innovative agricultural extension approach in Africa anddiscussed how to develop inclusive value chains in developing countries and what will be the role of agriculturalextension service. Through this session, we could learn thesix important points to promote added-value production
by smallholder farmers through the development of robust
market-driven supply chains.

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