Catherine Dolan

Governance and Trade in Fresh Vegetables: The Impact of UK Supermarkets on the African Horticulture Industry

Production of fresh vegetables for export has grown rapidly in a number of countries in sub-Saharan Africa over the last decade. This trade brings producers and exporters based in Africa together with importers and retailers in Europe. Large retailers in Europe play a decisive role in structuring the production and processing of fresh vegetables exported from Africa. The requirements they specify for cost, quality, delivery, product variety, innovation, food safety and quality systems help top determine what types of producers and processors are able to gain access to the fresh vegetables chain and the activities they must carry out. The control over the fresh vegetables trade exercised by UK supermarkets has clear consequences for inclusion and exclusion of producers and exporters of differing types, and for the long-term prospects for the fresh vegetables industry in the two major exporting countries studied, Kenya and Zimbabwe.

A gendered value chain approach to codes of conduct in African horticulture.

Codes of conduct covering the employment conditions of Southern producers exporting to European markets mushroomed throughout the 1990s, especially in the horticulture sector linking UK and European supermarkets with export firms in Africa. The majority of employment in this sector is “informal,” a significant proportion of which is female. This paper explores the gender sensitivity of codes currently applied in the African export horticulture sector from an analytical perspective that combines global value chain and gendered economy approaches. Through an analysis of these two approaches, it develops a “gender pyramid,” which provides a framework for mapping and assessing the gender content of codes of conduct. The pyramid is applied to codes that cover employment conditions in three commodity groups and countries exporting to European markets: South African fruit, Kenyan flowers and Zambian vegetables and flowers. It concludes that the gender sensitivity of codes needs to be greatly enhanced if they are to adequately address employment conditions relevant to informal and especially women workers.

Changing Governance Patterns in the Trade in Fresh Vegetables between Africa and the United Kingdom

Over the past twenty years the marketing of African fresh vegetables in the United Kingdom has become dominated by large retailers that have adopted competitive strategies based on quality, year-round supply, and product differentiation. This has led to a dramatic change in marketing channels, from wholesale markets to tightly knit supply chains. Global value chain analysis is used to explain why the various stages of production and marketing have become much more closely integrated and to consider the likely outcome of a further round of restructuring occurring at the present time. Although the current trends may lead to a changing role for importers, the tendency towards the concentration of production and processing in Africa in the hands of a few large firms is likely to continue.

On Farm and Packhouse: Employment at the Bottom of a Global Value Chain*

Abstract  The fresh vegetables commodity chain linking Kenyan producers with United Kingdom (UK) consumers employs significant numbers of workers in production and processing. This chain is dominated by UK retailers that determine the production imperatives of Kenyan firms upstream in the chain and, indirectly the employment strategies they adopt. This paper explores how competitive pressures are transmitted through the supply chain, and how exporters absorb these risks by placing greater emphasis on organizational flexibility and the elasticity of labor in horticultural production. The paper argues that while the industry provides substantial employment opportunities in Kenya, the commodity chain is dependent upon the “gendered” and insecure forms of employment it creates.

Reaching the Marginalised? Gender, Value Chains and Ethical Trade in African Horticulture

These success stories describe how two programs helped families to strengthen their health agricultural livelihoods and food security in Malawi. The programs helped households to grow more food guided farmers toward profitable business practices helped people to form savings groups taught families and young mothers about health and nutrition and increased access to HIV services and social welfare systems.Ethical trade, through codes of practice, forms an important part of the value chains for horticultural products sourced from Africa by major European buyers. This paper explores the relationship between value chains in the horticultural sector, the employment patterns of African producers, and the process of code implementation from a gender perspective. It asks whether, in the context of the gendered economy, codes alone can improve working conditions for all workers. Using case studies of Kenyan flowers, South African fruit, and Zambian flowers and vegetables, the article highlights the implications of flexible employment strategies for workers, and shows that social codes have not necessarily achieved better outcomes for women and informal workers, owing to the gendered economy. Ultimately, it is only by addressing the local gendered economy that the employment conditions of all workers, including those of marginal workers and women, are likely to improve.

Business as a development agent: evidence of possibility and improbability

An emphasis on making markets work for the poor has thrust companies into the role of ‘development agents’ – organisations that consciously seek to deliver outcomes that contribute to international development goals. This paper examines what business as a development agent means in terms of the promise, the conceptualisation and the developmental outcomes of several initiatives engaged in ‘bottom billion capitalism’. It argues that, while these initiatives are hailed as a solution for poverty, the benefits of such engagement must be weighed against other factors, including exclusion, the emphasis on capital assets and the reinterpretation of positive outcomes. The paper presents an alternative model of business as a development agent that better meets the criteria for a genuine development actor.

Enterprise and Inequality: A Study of Avon in South Africa

Avons apparent success in using entrepreneurship to help women escape poverty, as well as its staying power in circumstances where similar efforts have failed, has captured the attention of the international development community. This study, the first independent empirical investigation, reports that in South Africa, Avon helps some impoverished women earn a better income and inspires empowerment among them. The authors introduce a new theory, pragmatist feminism, to integrate past work on womens entrepreneurship and argue that feminist scholars should reexamine the histories of the market democracies for replicable innovations that may have empowered women.

Ethical Sourcing in the Global Food System

Transformation of Global Food: Opportunities and Challenges for Fair and Ethical Trade * The Development of Alternative and Fair Trade: Moving into the Mainstream * Organic and Fair Trade Movements in Global Food Networks * Corporate Social Responsibility from a Supermarket Perspective: Approach of the Co-operative Group * Ethical Trade: What Does It Mean for Women Workers in African Horticulture? * Central American Banana Production: Women Workers and Chiquitas Ethical Sourcing from Plantations * The Gangmaster System in the UK: Perspective of a Trade Unionist * Participatory Social Auditing: Developing a Worker-focused Approach * Oxfams Coffee Campaign: An NGO Perspective * Small Producers: Constraints and Challenges in the Global Food System * Concluding Reflections on the Future of Ethical Sourcing *

Fields of obligation : Rooting ethical sourcing in Kenyan horticulture

It was not so long ago that mangoes, papaya and snow peas evoked images of tropical climes and exotic peoples. Recently, however, the consumption of so-called luxury fruits and vegetables has elicited a different sort of imagery. Far from the lure of seductive landscapes, today’s consumer is confronted with haunting images of toxic fields, child slavery and the African poor. Such images are part of a new morality of consumption, where consumers, NGOs, trade unions and global supermarkets aspire to ‘save’ the African worker from the downside of globalization. This article explores the ways in which Kenya’s highly valuable vegetable trade has become the field on which notions of justice, economic rights and African development are played out. Based on archival research and consumer interviews, it focusses specifically on how the ethical turn of UK consumers (and the retailers’ branding of this sensibility) is rooted in an older legacy, whereby 19th-century liberal considerations of duty, morality and progress inhabited the agenda of the late colonial state. The article suggests that, in both cases, African labor is an arena in which discourses of justice are played out, as a consuming public (re)constitute the African worker as an object of their duty and obligation.

Lipstick Evangelism: Avon Trading Circles and Gender Empowerment in South Africa

Increasing numbers of corporations are vying to capture one of the largest untapped consumer markets – the worlds poor – in ways that are not only economically profitable but socially responsible. One type of initiative that has gained increased traction is trading partnerships between multinational corporations and womens informal exchange networks, creating micro-enterprise opportunities that not only deliver soap and mobile phones, but financial empowerment for women. This article examines one such initiative – the trade in Avon cosmetics. It aims to determine the extent to which the initiative alleviates poverty, and fosters empowerment, among black women in South Africa. It suggests that as unlikely as cosmetics may seem as a vehicle for development, direct sales of beauty products can offer low risk opportunities for women to become entrepreneurs, and form a potentially promising route to gender-equitable poverty reduction.