Strengthening Local Value Chains

Challenge

Despite being one of the major rice producing countries in the West African region, the Republic of Guinea continues to import significant amounts of rice from other countries. Though the amount of imported rice has decreased over the past few years, the market still tends to appreciate imported rice in light of its consistent quality and availability.

This indicates that the limited sales and consumption of domestically produced rice and rice products is not only due to insufficient production, but to a series of weaknesses in the different stages of the value chain, such as postharvest treatments/processing and commercial branding.

With 68% of the working population engaged in the agricultural sector, strengthening production and promoting sales of domestic rice is crucial for improving both the livelihoods of farmers and food security of the country.

Services

OC Global provides comprehensive consulting services for strengthening the domestic rice value chain targeting the Boke region in western Guinea.

OC Global is working together with the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock of the Republic of Guinea in surveying the value chain structure, planning and implementing pilot projects, and strengthening of the agriculture extension system. The pilot projects cover a wide range of activities including enhancement of production quality/quantity, postharvest processing, commercial branding, and sales trials, in order to verify what activities are truly effective to improve the value chain.

Moreover, a profound feature of the pilot projects is that it supports multiple sales trials to obtain continuous feedback on what should be further improved to enhance the sales of rice and rice products. Technical transfer is also promoted through this process, by gradually handing over the tasks to Government staff.

Results

Pilot projects are now ongoing to verify necessary interventions for improving the domestic rice value chain. The findings from the pilot projects will be further analyzed, in order to develop an Action Plan and Approach Guideline for promoting domestic rice.