Project

Designing sustainable horticulture value chains towards a food secure future

In October 2017, Wageningen Centre for Development Innovation (CDI) in collaboration with Universitas Gadjah Mada (UGM), organised a two-week refresher course on sustainable horticulture value chains. The course was financed through EP-Nuffic’s Netherlands Fellowship Programme (NFP) and the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs and took place from October 2 to October 13, 2017 in Yogyakarta, Indonesia.

Sustainable horticulture

During the two-week course, 19 practitioners (employed within the agricultural sector on education, research, business or government) from various countries in Africa and Asia, followed an interactive and participatory programme of lectures by course facilitators and guest experts, exercises & assignments, case study group work, excursions and a one day NFP alumni seminar.

The programme focused around the concept of sustainable horticulture value chains and pathways for development and transition from (semi-)subsistence horticultural production systems towards more advanced, efficient functioning and sustainable horticulture value chains. This sector transformation strategy, which is part of a broader Agri-food system thinking, intends to respond and adapt to current and future challenges such as population growth, urbanisation, emerging middle class, changing dietary requirements or environmental impacts. Well-functioning value chains can contribute to cope with these challenges and meet the increasing demands (and requirements) for sufficient safe, healthy and sustainable produced food.

Transition pathway scenarios

The lectures, exercises & assignments provided the participants with background information for deepening there knowledge and understanding of the sustainability concept within value chains and transition pathway scenarios, which they could directly apply in the exercises & assignments and case study group work.

Two excursion days were organised for the participants to several horticultural producers, companies and organisations. Participants got familiar with the Indonesian conditions and challenges, whereby the observations and lessons learned were directly linked back to the case studies.

For the case study group work, four real, and commissioned-driven, Indonesian case studies were selected. Indonesian organisations were approached and asked to bring in a problem case related to the topic of the course. Each of the selected organisations assigned a case commissioner from within their organisation and available for the participants to become familiar with the case. The participants worked in small groups on the cases going through the four steps of 1) Situation analysis, 2) Visioning, 3) Strategizing and 4) Strategic planning. The case study groups had several intakes with the case commissioner (either face to face or via skype) to discuss about the case.

Contact ir. ECLJ (Edwin) van der Maden

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Contact YR (Yeray) Saavedra Gonzalez MSc

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Project information

RC 2017 Indonesia

Status:: Completed
Start project:: Oct 2, 2017
End project:: Oct 13, 2017

Client(s):: EP-Nuffic

Partners:

Wageningen Centre for Development Innovation

Universitas Gadjah Mada (Indonesia)

NFP Alumni seminar

The first findings of the case study group work were presented during the NFP Alumni seminar organised near the end of the course. During the event, 3 national speakers also enlightened the group with stories on sector development, presented from different angles. After the inspiring presentations, participants discussed with the alumni (in a World Cafe setup) about their findings and harvested ideas and opinions to improve the cases.

At the end of the course, the participants prepared a case study report for the commissioner and an individual action plan for themselves to take home.

The course ended with an evaluation session. It then became clear that especially the concepts of sustainable value chains and transition pathways added value for the participants. They expressed their commitment to applying and incorporating the insights into their work-related activities back home.

At the same time, bringing in real life (Indonesian) cases into to the course was very much appreciated. The course participants enjoyed the interaction with the case commissioners and felt challenged to solve the problem proposed. They took on the assignment very seriously and put all their efforts into analysing the cases and finding suitable solutions. Lastly, Linking the alumni seminar to the participants’ group work created the space for lively discussion, interesting interactions and mutual learning.