Value Chain Governance and Children’s Work in Agriculture

<p dir="ltr">The vast majority of children’s work in rural Africa is in agriculture (<a href="https://bristoluniversitypressdigital.com/display/book/9781529226072/ch006.xml#ref-510" target="_blank">Dachille et al, 2015</a>) and, with the exception of what is used for home consumption, all agricultural produce – whether sold and consumed locally, or exported – moves through a value chain. All such chains link processes of production, trade, processing and distribution, and determine how costs, benefits and risks are distributed. It follows therefore that children’s work should never be seen as simply a farm- or household-level phenomenon, isolated from the broader web of economic and social relations, institutions and politics. For some crops and livestock products, these relations, institutions and politics will be predominately local, national or regional; but in the case of commodities such as coffee, cocoa, tea and sugar, they reach around the globe, linking working children to some of the world’s largest markets and most powerful corporations.</p><p dir="ltr">Because much of the work performed by rural children is embedded in agricultural value chains, and all such chains are governed in one way or another, the core argument developed in this chapter is that an understanding of value chain governance can help identify entry points for research on children’s work and for interventions to address harmful work. Although it is widely accepted that private sector actors, from local traders to international agri-business firms, can (and must) contribute positively to development, the reality of market competition and stakeholder interests still presents huge challenges (<a href="https://bristoluniversitypressdigital.com/display/book/9781529226072/ch006.xml#ref-562" target="_blank">Scheyvens et al, 2016</a>). We start with the assumption that agricultural value chain actors have some room for manoeuvre that allows them to influence the extent and nature ofchildren’s harmful work (CHW). However, the question is which actors, in what kinds of value chains and in what settings, are likely to have the motivation to exercise such influence?</p><p dir="ltr">In this chapter we introduce the concepts of agricultural value chain and value chain governance in order to highlight the embedded nature of children’s work. Value chains are governed through combinations of coordination modalities between producers, traders, processors, retailers, consumers, and other stakeholders. A typology of such governance modalities is proposed and used to identify entry points for research on children’s work and for value chain-based interventions to address CHW. For the purpose of this chapter, interventions are understood to be all activities undertaken with the objective of addressing CHW: as such, they are social processes that aim to affect the lives of individuals and groups, and to enable and constrain their social strategies (<a href="https://bristoluniversitypressdigital.com/display/book/9781529226072/ch006.xml#ref-541" target="_blank">Long and van der Ploeg, 1989</a>). The examples that we use in the chapter are predominately from the West African cocoa sector. However, the eight value chain governance modalities can be observed in agricultural value chains more generally.</p>