URBANE Project Deliverable 8.1 (internal project publication): Report on enabling dimensions of mainstream farming practices & current business models

This report is the first deliverable, D8.1, of Work Package 8 of the URBANE project that aims to establish One Health approaches to support agroecological transformation of peri-urban farming in West Africa. Work Package 8.1 aimed to identify existing mainstream agrifood business models and practices and the conditions that keep them in place. We pay special attention to the role of social practices in shaping the business models in place.

The main research question addressed in the report is: What are the current agrifood business models in the local context, and what social practices and other conditions keep them in place?

The report details the results of the mixed-method approach that was adopted to enable a broad, systemic perspective on agrifood business models and farming and related business practices in their social-technical context. A combination of a comprehensive systematic literature review and fieldwork research in two West African countries included in the URBANE project, Morocco and Bénin, enabled a deeper understanding of the complex dynamics at play within the local agrifood systems.

The research identified a core of problems and opportunities that appear to be shared widely across country contexts. Importantly, these include policies still mainly favoring conventional farming practices and actors, in pursuit of short-term productivity improvement. We also note that the pursuit of these policies has generally contributed to social differentiation, and marginalization of certain groups. At the same time, we discern a growing trend towards attention for, and adoption of more environmentally sustainable practices that can also be more socially inclusive and participatory. This report has uncovered several promising examples of revival of traditional sustainable practices as well as non-traditional innovations such as novel ICT based tools and products based on modern science that can help to boost efficiency and yields beyond what would be possible to achieve solely with traditional practices. This idea of blending traditional and modern is in line with the overarching aims of the URBANE project. At the same time, the two field studies brought out a lot of evidence of the importance of local context specificities, be it in the specifics of farming practices, in official institutional arrangements, economic structures, food culture, gender roles, or preferred ways of social organizing. Grasping these specificities is crucial for finding levers that will work for effective change.