High-starch varieties of cassava are critical for efficient starch and flour production, yet farmers are reportedly often reluctant to invest in such varieties, as farmers’ incentives over the years have been distorted in favor of maize production due to various national policies.

Cassava is grown in the northern parts of Zambia, more specifically, in the Luapula and Northwestern provinces. The Northwestern province shares a border with Angola, so it is easier to move cassava grown in the Northwestern province across the border into Angola. It also takes a shorter amount of time for cassava grown in Luapula to go to Angola (via the Democratic Republic of Congo) than to Lusaka directly. This is primarily due to the poor transport infrastructure and the availability of processing plants already set up by SAB Miller (ZB’s parent company). A similar story can be told for sorghum, which is grown in Zambia’s Southern province. It goes to Zimbabwe (which borders the Southern province) for brewing (in an SAB Miller facility) and then returns to Zambia for bottling, packaging, and distribution.

Summing up, although maize is clearly a well-established and complex value chain, with significant government investments and benefits from interest from key stakeholders in Kenya and Zambia, the maize sector remains less developed in Ghana. Cassava and sorghum are emerging value chains, with potential to be the next frontier crops to mitigate the impacts of climate change. Moreover, cassava can lead to densification of value chains, as it can be used as an input for various products and processes, which include, inter alia, brewing, metals extraction (copper, gold, and cobalt), ethanol production, starch making, and animal stock feed.

In the next step, we look more closely at the relationship between contract farming and the value chains in maize, cassava, and sorghum, based on surveys of farmers, buyers, and aggregators.

# **4. What Contractual Arrangements Dominate the Agriculture Value Chain Landscape in Africa?**

Our hypothesis is that farmers on a formal or informal contract with cooperatives, formal suppliers, wholesalers and large retailers, producers, and processors have a greater opportunity for their products to enter value chains. Farmers without any contracts are less likely to produce acceptable products for value chains. Our discussions with various lead firms, especially buyers, also revealed that none of the buyers was buying without a contract.

At the same time, we recognize that farmers without a contract can develop linkages with value chain participants, which we tried to capture in the interviews. We agree that a farmer does not have to have a contract to become part of a value chain, and that the relationship between the farmer and buyer is nonlinear. But for this study (especially for collecting data), we had to have a stylized definition, which is that to be part of a value chain the farmer would have to be part of a contract. This definition also prompted us to say that being part of a contract is a necessary but not sufficient condition of being part of a value chain.

To identify contract farmers who were likely to participate in value chains, surveys covering farmers, buyers, and aggregators were undertaken in Kenya, Ghana, and Zambia. As part of the pilot surveys undertaken for this project, 654 farm households, 41 key informants such as processors and brewers, and eight stakeholders were interviewed in the three countries. The full sample consists of 3,935 farmers, 60 aggregators, and 56 buyers in the three countries (see table 1 for details by country).

# **_Sampling_**

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