Agri-Food Industry Organizations (AFIOs) have increasingly gained recognition and attention as key actors in fostering inclusive agricultural transformation. Defined as organisations that can bring together farmers’ groups, cooperatives, and agri-food SMEs, AFIOs are often engaged in activities ranging from production and aggregation to processing and trade. With their deep embeddedness in local value chains, their potential to spark inclusive agricultural transformation is made possible by their intermediate, meso-level position. In this blog, you will find out why AFIOs drive inclusive agricultural transformation and how.

Why the Meso-Level Matters

The meso-level has increasingly been acknowledged as a critical area for promoting agricultural development. Positioned between micro-level actors such as individual farmers or SMEs and macro-level institutions such as government agencies or multinational donors, meso-level organisations have the ability to bridge the two. Uniquely placed to mediate between top-down policies and bottom-up practices, they can translate between high-level visions and grounded, context-specific action.

Across highly diverse African contexts, governments are increasingly committing to advancing agricultural development. In some contexts, however, governments simultaneously encounter challenges such as resource constraints, bureaucracy, and uneven capacity, which can affect their consistency in driving inclusive agricultural development. Conversely, while the private sector promotes valuable innovation and investment, its activities are typically driven by market incentives. With a tendency to focus more on already profitable sectors, less productive sectors and groups can get overlooked.

This is why meso-level organisations – such as AFIOs – are increasingly recognised for their role in driving inclusive agricultural transformation. They not only serve as intermediaries, but also evolve organically in response to local needs, and therefore possess a level оf legitimacy and‍ responsiveness that top-down institutions often lack. In that capacity, AFІOs can foster relational‍ trust, establish platforms for collective problem-solving, and facilitate coordination among diverging objectives and logics of public, private, and civil society actors.

AFIOs: Meso-Level Catalysts in Agri-Food Value Chains

So, how do AFIOs fit into this meso-level framework, especially within African agri-food systems? This is the central question in the Beyond Farming Collective (BFC) program (2022–2027), a Gates Foundation-funded initiative supporting 32 AFIOs across Ethiopia, Nigeria, and Tanzania. Implemented by Bopinc and the African Agribusiness Academy (AAA), with KIT as knowledge partner, this program explores AFIOs as potential pathways to inclusive agricultural transformation.

Through monitoring, evaluation, and learning (MEL) by KIT, the program aims to understand what types of AFIOs exist, how they function, and their role in advancing inclusivity across agricultural systems. The emerging insights, which are based on three years of AFIO- and member-level survey data, have been summarized in a newly published learning brief, offering evidence on how AFIOs contribute to inclusive agriculture transformation.

Key findings

• AFIOs Differ in How They Drive Transformation
  
  The brief shows that AFIOs vary in their contributions to inclusive agricultural transformation, which largely depends on their structure, sectoral focus, and maturity. Despite these differences, most AFIOs contribute through three core roles. First, they increase productivity by guiding small producers with training in Good Agricultural Practices (GAP), offering access to quality inputs, credit opportunities, mechanisation, and entrepreneurship development. Second, they strengthen the market systems by aggregating products, adding value with training and infrastructure, and facilitating trade through physical and digital marketplaces. Third, they can affect policy and regulatory environments by partaking in policy dialogues, sharing sector data, and advocating for formalisation and standards across value chains.
• Filling the Gaps Left by Public and Private Actors
  
  AFIOs often operate in spaces where both public and private institutions have demonstrated a tendency to leave gaps. As meso-level actors, AFIOs occupy an important intermediary function, providing inputs, facilitating credit, and brokering market linkages in rural agri-food systems that are typically underdeveloped. In some cases, AFIOs assume roles that are typically undertaken by private organizations, where commercial incentives are not expressed. In other cases, AFIOs fill gaps left by public sectors, e.g. providing social protection during circumstances where action is required during droughts and pest outbreaks. While these roles may exceed the conventional non-profit membership-based organizational mandates, AFIOs seem uniquely able and willing to adapt their role in response to clear and immediate needs felt at the community level.
• Trust-Based Institutions with Deep Local Roots
  
  Another important finding is that AFIOs often enjoy greater social legitimacy and member trust than government bodies or private companies. Their member-owned governance structures can promote cohesion and accountability, helping to reduce transaction costs and strengthen coordination within value chains. Unlike time-bound projects or rapidly changing policy environments, the relative stability of AFIOs allows them to pursue long-term, member-driven development strategies. Their grassroots reach also makes them crucial channels for delivering services and information to small-scale producers.
• Temporary Substitution, Not Permanent Replacement
  
  Despite their flexibility, AFIOs should not permanently take over roles better suited to the private sector. Ideally, AFIOs should function as facilitators and conveners – as coordinating value chain actors, catalyzing investments, and stepping into service delivery roles only temporarily and strategically. While their ability to act as ‘utility players’ – adapting to sectoral gaps and emergencies – is a strength, it is also one that must be balanced with the need for sustainability and appropriate role distribution.

AFIOs are shaping the future of resilient agri-food systems in Africa

AFIOs are proving to be versatile and indispensable players in the push for inclusive agricultural transformation. While this is steadily being recognized, their long-term success will depend on careful role definition, strong internal governance, and external partnerships that allow them to complement rather than substitute for public and private sector actors.

Would you like to learn more about the roles and effectiveness of Agri-Food Industry Organizations in driving Inclusive Agricultural Transformation? Please contact our advisors Jaap Voeten or Ingrid Høgh Rasmussen.

References:

• Blair, K., Kimbugwe, K., Koleros, A., Mangheni, M., Narayan, T., & Usmani, F. (2021). Partnership for inclusive agricultural transformation in Africa: Final evaluation (Volume I). Mathematica.
• Laborde, D., Lallemant, T., McDougal, K., Smaller, C., & Traore, F. (2019). Transforming agriculture in Africa & Asia: What are the policy priorities? International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD).
• Scott, W. R. (2008). Institutions and Organizations: Ideas, Interests, and Identities (3rd ed.). Sage Publications.