Methodology and focus areas

Whereas the previous study for the Eastern Cape that provided the material for Chapters 3 and 4 focused solely on Nkonkobe Municipality, the need for a more policy-relevant enquiry into the supply chain to identify the existing governance structures meant that a wider geographical space should be defined. For this reason, the entire Amathole District

was taken as the sample frame from which four municipalities, namely Amahlathi, Buffalo City, Mbashe and Nkonkobe local municipalities, were enumerated. Figures 9.1 present a map of the district showing the relevant local municipalities.

As already indicated, the SANPAD-funded research on ‘Institutional and Technical Constraints to Smallholder Development’, carried out a comprehensive inventory of the key components of the farming system, focusing specifically on the Nkonkobe municipality, and identified the institutional and technical constraints to smallholder participation in the food system. In order to understand how the smallholder producers are linked to supply chains and the processes that move the food along these supply chains, it was necessary to extend the dataset to incorporate details on what happens to the food between the farm and table and how that process is facilitated. In this regard, the inventory went on to identify those who sell what and to whom and how the foods are procured and the arrangements for their distribution within and beyond the local area, municipality, and the wider district.

This exercise was conducted in the format of a comprehensive auditing of the structures and how they operate without necessarily looking at what their impacts are on the rest of the system. That aspect is taken up in Chapter 10 which examines the implications of the governance arrangements for market access. The primary information gathered for this chapter was complemented by further document analyses on agro supply chains, network issues, and the food markets in developing and emerging economies. The focus areas for the information gathering were carefully chosen to promote understanding about the needs

Figure 9.1. Geographical location of the Amathole District of the Eastern Cape Province, South Africa.

and aspirations of the farming households enumerated, what resources are available, the roles played by different participants in the chain, and how the benefits of the economic activities are distributed.

The information gathering exercise adopted a case study approach. The previous study identified the principal commodity categories of the district and these formed the basis for developing the survey instruments for the next step of enumerating individual production and consumption units as well as retail outlets. In this regard, a semi-structured questionnaire was drawn up and the following specific questions were included to afford deeper insights into the governance mechanisms that are important in the local food system of the district:

• What are the needs and aspirations of the farmers and other chain participants in the district?

• Sources and destinations of principal foods in the district – from where do the food retailers buy produce for sale in Alice/Fort Beaufort/Stutterheim/King Williams Town/

Dutywa/Willowvale?

• Under what arrangements do the transactions take place? Do they buy from the small-scale producers in the surrounding villages or are these producers discriminated against on grounds of poor quality or insufficiency of output?

• Formal and informal producer-retailer contracts – what are the elements of the contract and how are they enforced, if they exist in the first place?

• Municipal regulatory mechanisms – trade licensing requirements – what state institutions and departments have responsibility for this, what are their requirements, how do they operate, etc.?

• Membership of marketing associations for eligibility to trade specified commodities? – who has access to the fresh produce market?

• What are the links between major retail chains and Fresh Foods Markets in the major market centres such as between the Fruit and Vegetable City in King Williams Town and East London? (Fruit and Vegetable City is a well known retail seller of fruit and vegetables in South Africa).

• For the small-scale citrus producers, the influence of the producer organisations – Citrus Growers Association – and the rules of bodies such as EurepGap and local is a Good Agricultural Practice (GAP) scheme aimed at ensuring food safety, environmental protection, occupational health, safety and welfare. Are these applicable in the district and in what ways are they applied?

In 2008 and 2009, during a one month period in each year, a data collecting procedure was instituted to enumerate the major food retail outlets in Alice, Fort Beaufort, Stutterheim, King Williams Town, Dutywa and in Willowvale in order to track their main suppliers in relation to the pre-identified principal commodity categories and build up deeper understanding of the rhythm and flow pattern of supply and sales, and the governance mechanisms influencing transactions in the food chain.

Of particular interest were such issues as supplier-retailer relationships and retailer-buyer/

consumer relationships. The factors affecting these relationships were tracked through the semi-structured, multiple-visit interviews of the principal retail outlets, representative producers and representative consumers. For retailers, the interviews focused on identification of major suppliers, when and how often each commodity moves through the chain to capture the element of market timing, quality concerns if any, and whether or not the chain delivers the commodity when it is needed or whether some waiting period is involved. For producers, the questions included where they sold, how they transported the commodities between farm and shop, what motivates choice among alternative transport modes, and destination of produce, and whether or not there are well-defined arrangements and procedures for facilitating exchange. In the case of consumers, the questions revolved around where commodities are procured, at what prices the commodities are procured and how these compared with those prevailing elsewhere. It was important to determine whether or not consumers adjudged a particular outlet positively or negatively.

Figure 9.1 delineates the geographical boundaries of the Amathole District of the Eastern Cape Province. The main towns of Balfour, Seymour, Alice, Fort Beaufort, Healdtown, Middledrift, King Williams Town, Stutterheim, Dutywa, Willowvale, and East London fall within the district. Out of these, Alice/Fort Beaufort, Stutterheim, King Williams Town, Dutywa and Willowvale were closely enumerated while fleeting, rapid assessments were conducted in the rest of the towns. The dominant geographic characteristics of this area include the extensive mountain range of the Amathole which encloses a valley of about 80 km length being part of a vast catchment area stretching about 1,715 square kilometers across much of the southern parts of the Eastern Cape Province. The district retains an enormous amount of primary forest, especially in the Hogsback and Keiskammahoek areas and is drained by a large number of rivers, notably the Keiskamma, Buffalo, Nahoon, and Gqunube which flow in a markedly south-easterly direction to empty into the Indian Ocean.

Much of the area is endowed with fertile soils which support intense agricultural activity.

A sizeable population of about 1.7 million in mid-2007 across the 8 municipalities of the district (Table 9.1) suggests immense market potential for agriculture.