From value chain analysis to global value chain analysis: fresh orange export sector in mediterranean partner countries

Preceding chapters outlined some of the challenges facing Mediterranean Partner Countries (MPCs), from stubborn rural poverty to a crisis in its rapidly changing demographics. The region is facing a predicament over agricultural policy and competitiveness in its agri-food sector. MPCs and the wider region of the Middle East and North African (MENA) are failing to meet the challenge of averting heavy rural-urban migration and the current policy strategy has not brought the economic growth to the region that it desperately needs (Baldacci et al. 2008). Poor economic opportunities are pushing rural households into the city where instead of finding new prospects, poverty is merely concentrated in urban slums and unemployment continues to be a looming threat for the region (Nabli 2004). The population in MPCs that depend on agriculture coupled with a job crisis that must be con- fronted over the next decade suggests that the agri-food sector is, at least in the short term, the only realistic sector to bring economic improvements to rural areas in MENA. Yet growth in value-added agriculture in MENA is on par with sub- Saharan Africa and is significantly less than all other developing regions (Binswanger-Mkhize and McCalla 2010). Agricultural policies in the region con- tinue to link competitiveness, with volume being the overarching aim (Lindberg et al. 2006). All of this suggests that the region presents fertile ground to test a new value-orientated tool that goes beyond ‘conventional industry studies’ (Kaplinsky and Morris 2002). The present chapter contrasts with other chapters in this book. Rather than an analysis from the subject area of economics, a method that is more aligned with the business management discipline is presented. Using a methodology adapted from the work of Taylor (2005) and taken from the Supply Chain Management (SCM) literature, this chapter applies a Global Value Chain Analysis (GVCA) which identifies where value is created in the eyes of the end consumer and highlights bottlenecks based on the ...