Agriculture & Responsible Sourcing
Altai Consulting provides strategic support to corporates and organisations involved in a variety of sectors to ensure the long-term sustainability of their activities. Through the design of responsible sourcing strategies and the digitisation of value chains, our clients have been able to improve the traceability and quality of their produce while having a positive social and environmental impact on the communities they work with.
Value Chain Analysis for Improved Local Sourcing & Livelihoods on More than 40 Agricultural Produce in Africa, the Middle East and South Asia
Altai Consulting has conducted value chain analyses and business planning assignments for private clients and donor-funded initiatives on more than 40 agricultural produce in Africa, the Middle East and South Asia. These endeavours aim at encouraging local sourcing, responsible procurement and improved livelihoods for the producing communities. Value chains covered include food crops, cash crops and produce such as wheat, maize, milk & dairy, meat, fish, edible oil, coffee, cocoa, cotton, dried fruits & nuts, grape, pomegranate, flowers for fragrances, etc.
Measure of Social, Commercial & Environmental Impact through Monitoring, Evaluation & Learning for the AgriTech Innovation Fund – GSMA / FCDO
The GSMA AgriTech team has launched an Innovation Fund to support the design, development and launch of mobile services digitising field procurement for agribusiness clients and smallholder farmers. Altai Consulting has been hired by the GSMA to conduct the Monitoring, Evaluation & Learning of the programme, and measure social, commercial and environmental impact on smallholder farmers in seven selected markets in Africa and South Asia.
Monitoring & Evaluation of GAIN’s Marketplace for Nutritious Foods Program in Kenya, Mozambique and Rwanda
Altai was commissioned by GAIN (Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition) to conduct the Monitoring & Evaluation of its Marketplace for Nutritious Foods (MNF). The programme aims at promoting innovation and catalysing private sector engagement in producing and marketing more nutritious foods for lower income households in Sub-Saharan Africa, via the extension of grants to local food businesses.
Due Diligence in the Wheat Flour Sector in Mozambique
A private equity fund was considering investing, along with other partner investors, in Merec Group, a leading local miller and manufacturer of packaged food in Mozambique. The fund and its partners commissioned Altai Consulting to conduct a market due diligence to support their investment decision.
The market due diligence largely focus on Mozambique analysing notably: (i) General market environment; (ii) Detailed analyses of Merec’s 5 main product categories: wheat (flour and bread), maize, pasta, biscuits and animal feed; (iii) Export markets: Zimbabwe, Malawi, Zambia, and Northern South Africa; (iv) Distribution platform; (v) Raw materials: focus on wheat grain; (vi) Critical review of Merec’s strategy and identification of key risks.
Industry Assessment in the Wheat Flour and Edible Oil Industries in Central Asian Republics, Pakistan and Afghanistan – GAIN
GAIN (Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition) commissioned Altai Consulting to conduct, in the framework of the Regional Fortification Program in Central Asian Republics (CAR) and Afghanistan, a regional trade flow analysis of wheat grain, wheat flour and edible oil. The specific objectives of this research were to map volumes produced, volumes consumed locally and exported, as well as to conduct a detailed assessment of local transformation capacities in CAR and Pakistan. The work helped GAIN identify industrial partners, assess their technical capacity and the training required to implement its fortification programme.
Identification of the Most Relevant Digital Solutions for Farmers for a Major Fertiliser Producer in Kenya, Thailand, Colombia and India
Our client, a worldwide leader in the fertiliser business, was eager to identify digital farming solutions that could be a catalyst for growth. The project was based on two major modules. The first one, Mapping the Supply, led to identification of numerous start-ups/initiatives and several potential partners in five emerging markets (China, Colombia, Kenya, Tanzania and Thailand) through secondary research and expert interviews (sector experts at international institutions or NGOs, MNOs, start-up founders, academics, funders, etc.). This gave us a very robust understanding of the ecosystem and informed the development of the research tools for the second module: Understanding the Demand. In four countries (Colombia, Kenya, Thailand and India) we selected one or two crops and implemented a combination of quantitative research, with a large sample of farmers, and a qualitative approach, with a couple of ethnographies and focus groups with agrovets/ retailers. This led us to identify the main barriers and pain points experienced by end-users, to determine how digital tools could help circumvent them, and to design a clear roadmap for action to our client.