When you hear the word “chain,” you may think of something that is both visible and tangible. However, this is not the case with an agricultural value chain.
It’s probably best to start with what the principle of a “value chain” means. You can think of it as a straightforward and pretty useful way that allows people to better understand how production, purchasing, and selling things work.
Technically speaking, everybody is a part of multiple value chains. After all, even if you are not producing anything, you consume a lot of things. Therefore, you have links to many of these chains.
As far as the agricultural variation is concerned, you have the producers at one end. These will be those on the farms who are raising the animals and growing the crops. The consumers are on the other side of the fence, and they will be the ones eating, drinking, wearing, and using the final products in other ways.
There aren’t just two points in an agricultural value chain, though. Other nodes are in the middle, which often consist of large and small businesses. The chain is the entire series of stakeholders involved in the transition of agricultural products from the producer to the consumer.
Growing and reaping the crops, for example, may be done by the farmer. However, the processing, transportation, packaging, and other elements that may happen before you get the product are all done by different entities.
There are even governments that are responsible for laws and policies and banks that offer loans to allow the businesses in the chains to function. The media is also often involved since it’s used for advertisements, which contain valuable information.
Regardless of how basic a product may be, it can have an agricultural value chain that’s more complex than you would imagine.
Value chains can be very simple or complex strings of entities involved in moving a product from end to end. In agriculture, this will include farmers, consumers, processors, banks, and more.
