QUALITY CONTROL STANDARDS FOR CEREAL VALUE CHAINS

APRIL 2015 This report was produced for review by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). It was prepared by International Resources Group (IRG).

QUALITY CONTROL STANDARDS FOR CEREAL VALUE CHAINS

CONSENSUS-BASED INDUSTRY STANDARDS TO INCREASE SMALL FARMER ACCESS TO GRAIN MARKETS

QUALITY CONTROL STANDARDS FOR CEREAL VALUE CHAINS CONSENSUS-BASED INDUSTRY STANDARDS TO INCREASE SMALL FARMER ACCESS TO GRAIN MARKETS

April 2015

DISCLAIMER The author’s views expressed in this publication do not necessarily reflect the views of the United States Agency for International Development or the United States Government

TABLE OF CONTENTS

QUALITY CONTROL STANDARDS FOR CEREAL VALUE CHAINS V

ACRONYMS

CIRIZ Interprofessional Committee on Rice

FEPROMAS Fédération des Producteurs de Maïs du Saloum

FTF Feed the Future

PCE Projet Croissance Economique, or Economic Growth Project

SAED Société Nationale d'Aménagement et d'Exploitation des Terres du Delta du Fleuve Sénégal et des Vallées du Fleuve Sénégal et de la Falémé

SFZ Senegal Forest Zone

SRV Senegal River Valley

T Tonne

USAID United States Agency for International Development

WFP World Food Program

QUALITY CONTROL STANDARDS FOR CEREAL VALUE CHAINS VII

PREFACE

This technical note is one of a series of short papers produced by USAID/Senegal’s Projet Croissance Economique (PCE), or Economic Growth Project, implemented by IRG, an Engility company, from 2009-2015.1 The purpose of the series is to share experiences and lessons learned with implementing partners, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), and the broader development community.

This paper is intended to serve as an informational tool for those wishing to engage in similar activities and who need more details on both technical aspects and implementation methodologies. As such, it is not an evaluation, though it does present important program results and discussions on impacts.

The primary goal of USAID/PCE is to promote food security by linking small cereal farmers (rice, maize, and millet) to certified seed and commercial grain value chains to boost their productivity and diversify their incomes. USAID/PCE activities support certified seed production and distribution alongside structural investments in seed processing centers and certification labs; increased agricultural processing capacity; new market linkages between producers and the private sector for distribution, processing, and storage; introduction of new quality grading and packaging standards developed at the grassroots level to foster national and regional trade competitiveness; increased access for small farmers to agricultural insurance and tailored cashflow-based financing mechanisms; policy reform; and capacity building of Government, farmer organizations and financial sector actors relative to the functioning, monitoring and governance of cereal value chains including risk reduction and response strategies.

As USAID/PCE is an integrated program, a number of broad messages apply across the series. One above all is that there truly is no ―one-size fits all‖ approach to be applied across all sectors. In fact, the project team considers as a best practice the iterative implementation of a set of models to tailor them to the varying needs along different Feed the Future (FTF) value chains in different regions of the country.

1 Readers interested in accessing additional project reports and documentation should consult USAID’s Development Experience Clearinghouse under project reference 685-I-00-06-00005-00 (https://dec.usaid.gov/)

INTRODUCTION

A standardized and controlled quality is key for successful value chain consolidation. As it is one of the main criteria for differentiating between brands, quality should be considered a basic condition for market access. It is with this perspective that USAID/PCE has engaged with value chain partners to launch a quality control system to improve the intrinsic and commercial quality of local grain. Through extensive consultative working meetings and engagement of all value chain stakeholders (producers, traders, buyers, and processors) USAID/PCE facilitated the establishment of a set of consensus-based standards for each of the key value chains (rice, maize, and millet). The standards were folded into a comprehensive initiative to promote consumption of local grains in Senegal. The approach was developed inclusively and consensually in order to ensure it was adopted by all industry stakeholders. Promotion of the standards was a top priority for USAID/PCE’s final years, with emphasis placed on organizing and delivering trainings on standardizing quality norms and tracking compliance through crop production quality measurements. As a result, small farmers have increased their integration and access to national markets with their own branded, quality product that conforms to market demands — particularly urban market standards.

2 QUALITY CONTROL STANDARDS FOR CEREAL VALUE CHAINS

CONTEXT

One of USAID/PCE’s primary goals is promoting inclusion of smallholder producers through a robust value chain development approach. Market penetration is at the core of value chain development, but to penetrate the market it is essential to match the quality of the dominant product (at a minimum). However, the low quality of locally produced grains (primarily produced by smallholder farmers) has long been regarded as the primary constraint to successfully marketing them in urban centers or in selling them to the agro-processing industry. Senegalese urban consumers, particularly in Dakar, have come to expect a higher quality product, but pay particular attention to the quality/price ratio. In particular, the quality criteria that consumers are most strict about are related first and foremost to cleanliness (presence of foreign matter, rotten grains, sand, etc.) and homogeneity (varietal homogeneity and whole grains) of the product. Homogeneity and batch consistency are particularly important in urban areas, especially for rice, where consumers generally do not have time to manually sort and clean rice before cooking it. As a result, lower quality products tend to remain marketable only to rural markets and consumers, and are therefore unable to offset demand for higher quality rice imports, despite domestic production potential.

Nevertheless, prior to USAID/PCE’s intervention, a formal grading system for the cereal sector in Senegal was unheard of. Senegal has no formally documented or monitored system to control grain quality in the country, and individuals have historically relied on empirical techniques to assess grain quality — such as observing color or assessing moisture through touch. These subjective norm definitions and unverifiable assessments have been sources of contention and mistrust between grain buyers and sellers. In addition to addressing these issues, the new approach instills quality measurement with a traceable grading system, which not only enhances marketability, but also strengthens consumer confidence in the transparency and safety of food production processes.

ESTABLISHING A QUALITY CONTROL MECHANISM FOR GRAINS

In 2013, USAID/PCE pioneered the development and piloting of quality control systems for paddy rice, maize and millet that set parameters for strict, verifiable, and traceable grain quality control that would serve as the basis for contract farming.2 The diagram below outlines the key steps that were taken to establish the set of industry-agreed standards for testing and controlling grain output quality, as well as the main actors who were involved in each step:

Conceptualization of a Quality Control Program: As described above, USAID/PCE identified the need for grain quality control standards in rural production zones, through its work on value-chain strengthening and linking smallholder producers to downstream value chain actors and integrating them into national market supply systems.

2 See the note in this series on Smallholder Market Integration through Contract Farming for more details.


Multi-stakeholder workshops to build consensus on norms: USAID/PCE organized workshops for key actors of each value chain. The main invitees were producer organizations, traders, wholesalers, and processors. The workshops were facilitated by USAID/PCE and agendas were organized to facilitate participants in an activity of deconstructing and assessing the dominant practice and thinking in the field of grain quality management. To start, a bibliography of existing grains norms and standards such as those issued by the World Food Program (WFP), and scientific research on post-harvest grain management served as a working basis for forging agreement on standards that could meet sanitary criteria as well as market standards. Then, knowledge and current practices of the various actors were revisited to assess their applicability to the newly agreed thresholds.

Following the initial consensus-building events, a series of additional workshops were held to accomplish the following: Establishing the testing methodology, procedures, and testing equipment: The norms cover criteria and conformity thresholds for sanitation, homogeneity, and humidity, among other factors. They also set specific sampling and quality testing procedures that have been standardized by partners as part of their marketing process. All grain undergoes a strict system of sampling and controls before being accepted and sold, ensuring its commercial suitability. This control step ensures that only clean and homogeneous lots are stored, placed on the market or included in contracted orders. In addition to ensuring that control-testing practices would ascertain quality thresholds properly, another important discriminating factor was the simplicity and repeatability of the action. That is, a test must be able to be conducted in an objective and easily repeatable way by a range of actors with differing education and expertise levels – and be sufficiently statistically robust to give comparable results. Similarly, the final quality grading methodology needed to take into account the contextual realities of the environments where they would be carried out. For example, the local availability (and affordability) of materials and reparability of parts, access to the correct batteries, and other factors were important determinants in the final selection of equipment. An example of how the methodology was tailored to local contexts and user capacity levels was the use of small matchboxes to take sample measurements: since in Senegal the same size matchbox is available throughout all rural zones, experts calculated the tolerance in foreign matter or non-conforming grain per kilogram and calibrated this to a number of full matchboxes. Annexes 1 through 3 show the training guides with testing methodologies, process, and norms for each of the grains. The table below shows the distinct grading norms for the three cereal value chains.

Grain Quality Control Measurement Threshold Criteria

Threshold Moisture (%)

Bag weight

Off-color grains (%)

Immature grains (%)

Foreign Matter (%)

Milling Rate (%)

Varietal homogeniety3

Presence of straw (%)

Moldy Grains (%)

Phyto products

Defective Grains (%)

Irrigated Rice

12-14% 85kg max4

N/A 1% 1% 63% Yes N/A N/A N/A N/A

Maize 13% 60kg max5

2% N/A 1% N/A N/A N/A 0% N/A 5%

Millet 12% 50kg <25/ 1kg 0% 0.3% N/A N/A 3% 0% No N/A

3 The varietal homogeneity is tracked from field to check point in order to ensure traceability.

4 For a bag measuring 120cm by 70cm. For a bag measuring 100cm by 60cm the maximum weight is 50/60kg.

5 For maize, bags can be 50kg or 60kg, and should be 95mm polypropylene.

To ensure reliable testing according to the established methodologies, procedures and corresponding equipment were identified for the various quality control steps. These included, among others: sampling method and tools for loads, which are determined according to the type of delivery (e.g. via truck, carts, warehouse stocks, etc.); probes for taking samples of large quantities; industrial scales for calculating the average weight of sacks; precision scales for weighing samples; humidity meters for testing moisture levels; sieves for sorting and separating out impurities (such as stones, straw, moldy grains, etc.); calibration of recommended measurement instruments according to the appropriate sample size required (e.g. number of matchboxes, milk cans, etc.); use of scales for weighing the identified defective grains and impurities; development of quality control sheets to document the different lots; register for logging and tracking collected data; process to enter quality control data with the farmer tracking database.

Definition of checkpoints: Sites were selected as designated checkpoints, known as ―control points,‖ where the quality testing process would be applied to grains. In many instances, this would take place at the previously established consolidation warehouse point (where farmers would bring their individual yields to be consolidated and stored with the rest of the network’s grain). In some instances the quality control sites are at the network office or another checkpoint such as the farm gate. These sites were selected based on their accessibility for farmers and other value chain actors. Combined, these form an increasingly dense network of quality control sites, as shown in Annex 4, for a total of 220 in 2015.

Promotion, training, and equipment distribution: To popularize the approach, instead of simply conducting theoretical trainings, a series of illustrated step-by-step guides were developed in poster format and posted at the designated checkpoints (farm gate, consolidation warehouse, etc.). The posters were also printed on A4 sized paper and distributed ―en masse‖ to networks for wide distribution and training of producers. Laminated versions of the posters were provided to network facilitators who would be conducting trainings in the field. In addition, facilitators were trained on how to produce a low-cost training video, which they made with producers to explain the different steps of quality control and demonstrated the use of appropriate equipment. These videos were shared among farmers and helped them to understand the process and become familiar with the concept of quality control even if they had not yet received training.

While trainings and promotion activities were underway, the necessary quality grading equipment was distributed to checkpoints, including:

Quality Control Equipment and Consolidation Points Instruments Irrigated Rice Rainfed Rice Millet Maize Totals humidity meters 104 14 14 37 169 mini-milling machines 47 4 N/A N/A 51 pallets 4,850 N/A 170 297 5,317 industrial scales 40 N/A 7 37 84 precision scales 50 N/A 1 - 51 sampling rods 55 N/A N/A 30 85 sieves N/A N/A N/A 58 58 check points 118 0 16 96 220


In addition to training on quality control adherence and testing procedures, each network was coached on developing a brand to market their product, which they now print on the grain bags. Some networks now include some of the quality testing results on their bags to demonstrate transparency and high quality of their product to consumers.

Low-cost quality control training video produced by FEPROMAS, a maize farmer’s federation (located at http://youtu.be/qQ-gQ64ioY0).

Quality millet stored in Mamelles Jaboot branded bags at Wack Ngouna’s warehouse on recycled plastic pallets.

Documentation and evaluation: The expectation of the quality control process is that when customers buy quality-controlled grain, they does not need to inspect it or explain themselves to be assured that it meets their expectations as a client. Rather, all of the factors that determine the quality of a particular grain were already taken into account by the control process with the ideal end product in mind. For this reason, a system for documenting and tracking the results of each quality test was developed and forms distributed to all control checkpoints. Each production load is accompanied by the control test result sheet, which demonstrated traceability and quality assurance to customers. Examples of these sheets are included in the illustrated training and promotion guides as well, so that all actors are familiar with the requirements and the process. The quality control data is presented and evaluated during network debriefings and broader debrief meetings with all value chain actors. During this time, performance levels and adherence to the quality standards are discussed and issues are brought to light and addressed as necessary.

http://youtu.be/qQ-gQ64ioY0



RESULTS AND LESSONS LEARNED

With the intervention of USAID/PCE, the practice of grading quality has been spreading quickly to many partners and value chain actors. To date, nearly 16,300 farmers have been trained on quality control, the majority being from producer organizations in the northern irrigated rice zones. More than 80,000 tonnes (T) of grain have passed quality tests according to the established criteria. The table below shows the number of farmers trained in each season for each value chain since the program was first launched, including percentage of women. The number of irrigated rice producer networks in the quality control program was increased dramatically in 2014, from 6 to 23, comprising an important contingent of women-led groups (13 total, 10 of which were new for the 2014 rain season), using 75 consolidation points spread across the Senegal River Valley (SRV). Similar increases are noted for maize quality control, which had an increase in women’s participation from 9% in 2013 to 30% in 2014. These female participation rates reflect the orientation of the quality control program to involve women’s groups, who tend to be more involved in marketing and small scale processing.

Quality Norms Training and Tonnes Monitored, 2013-2015

Value Chain

2013/2014 Rain season CSC 2014 2014/2015 Rain season Totals

People trained % F Tonnes

monitored People trained % F Tonnes

monitored People trained % F Tonnes

monitored People Trained

Tonnes monitored

Irrigated Rice 1,556 13% 3,665 2,748 28% 43,412 4,488 43% 31,772 8,792 78,849

Maize 1,122 9% 290 N/A 3,056 30% 1,252 4,178 1,542

Millet 1,380 17% 348.5 N/A 1,935 17% 318 3,315 667

Total 4,058 4,304.5 2,748 43,412 9,479 33,342 16,285 81,058

From the first year, a pilot was run with six irrigated rice networks, six partner networks for millet, and FEPROMAS (Fédération des Producteurs de Maïs du Saloum) for maize. This distribution of the pilot provided a good geographical coverage of the country's major grain production areas from the central to northern regions. Debriefings were conducted within each partner network to assess individual performance rates, and then open ―quality days" (Journées Qualité) were held for each value chain, where other value chain actors were invited to open house events to observe and learn about quality testing processes, documentation, and more. These activities helped to refine the methodology and build consensus on the standards. Furthermore, the encouraging results enabled better integration of transactions through the involvement of different actors in the control processes. The pilot led to significant advances in the quality of cereals that have since been put on the market by the farmers, leading to increases in market prices. In the north, the ―Quality Day‖ was also organized as a preliminary step to the extension program for 2014, with the support of SAED (Société Nationale d'Aménagement et d'Exploitation des Terres du Delta du Fleuve Sénégal et des Vallées du Fleuve Sénégal et de la Falémé) and other partners, to carry out an impact assessment of the paddy quality control process with six leading producer networks in the Dagana department. This represented a major innovation in this value chain and marked a milestone for the transfer


of ownership to mainstream extension institutions such as SAED and SRV farmer networks. The end result of these dialogues was that the Interprofessional Committee on Rice (CIRIZ) adopted the quality control criteria piloted by USAID/PCE as their base specifications for defining contracts and setting paddy rice pricing scales. Also, SAED – the main player in the irrigated rice value chain in the northern region – has added quality control to its Mission Statement.

As in the irrigated rice value chain, quality control practices have become systematized activities between millet and maize producers and processors in the Southern Forest Zone (SFZ) (central regions). The millet quality control program is focused on networks that have developed a collective and proactive marketing strategy, targeting processors who require high-quality, graded millet for the production or preparation of processed cereals. For millet, two national companies (Mamelles Jaboot and Laiterie du Berger) who use millet to create a local dish called Thiakry, have contracted farmer networks to secure their supply based on the new quality standards. Through this practice, at least 690 T are being consolidated and branded annually for these and other contracted sales, which is a significant amount of marketed production for this choice grain that is primarily saved for household consumption. Locally produced, quality controlled maize is progressively penetrating the animal feed market and proving a worthy competitor to its imported counterpart. After two years of systematic quality grading, maize prices have risen as more than 5,000 T of grain have passed quality testing in the Sine Saloum region alone.

From the first years of implementing and scaling the quality control program, the USAID/PCE team has noted a number of lessons learned, most notably:

Quicker adoption and lower apprehension by farmers to the introduction of the new quality control approach was observed, compared with introduction of other technology packages that have been introduced by the project. This is attributed to the fact that all methods, approaches and tools were co-developed with farmers and local partners to meet a need that was brought up frequently by key stakeholders. This has quickly translated into broad-scale behavior change of value chain actors, who are gradually making quality a differentiating factor of value assessments in both urban and rural markets. As such, the feedback of debriefs, self-assessments, and external evaluations are essential.

Quickly scaling up the adoption and adherence to these norms and grading practices for all value chains will be a challenge moving forward but has shown promise based on the scaling experience to date. For instance, introducing the norms used for irrigated rice to rainfed rice production zones has greatly advanced the national recognition of these standards. These are already being piloted in the 2014/2015 rain season in select rainfed rice zones.

FEPROMAS quality maize is considered by AVISEN to be on par with imported origins.

Enriching traditional practices by a systematic integration of scientific measurements to what was once evaluated empirically has forged a methodology that has potential to be easily adopted in all subsequent activities of quality improvement.

A grading system based on simple scientific principles meets the needs of grassroots users as well as the demands of consumers. This leads to wide-scale appreciation by multiple actors, as does basing standards for different cereals on end-use criteria from field experiences.


ANNEXES

1. RICE QUALITY CONTROL ILLUSTRATED CHARTS

2. MAIZE QUALITY CONTROL ILLUSTRATED CHARTS

3. MILLET QUALITY CONTROL ILLUSTRATED CHARTS

4. MAPS OF CONTROL CHECKPOINTS

ANNEX 1: RICE QUALITY CONTROL ILLUSTRATED CHARTS

ANNEX II: MAIZE QUALITY CONTROL ILLUSTRATED CHARTS

ANNEX III: MILLET QUALITY CONTROL ILLUSTRATED CHARTS

ANNEX IV: MAPS OF CONTROL CHECKPOINTS 2013-2015


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QUALITY CONTROL STANDARDS FOR CEREAL VALUE CHAINS

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