Inside-out strategic coupling for smallholder market integration – Mango production in Malawi as a test case

Starting from the observation that value chain research has informed much of agricultural development interventions in recent decades, this paper identifies five key challenges to current agricultural development policies in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs): access to finance, infrastructure, land tenure, local linkages and knowledge transfer. Based on this review, it is argued that recent theoretical advances in the global production network (GPN) approach can help to achieve a more holistic view of agricultural development policies than the more linear value chain research. In particular, three key concepts from the GPN approach are highlighted: mobilisation of regional assets, strategic coupling and territorial embeddedness. These key concepts are used to propose a framework called ‘insight-out strategic coupling for smallholder integration’, which builds on the concept of strategic coupling in GPN research and applies it as a development tool to agricultural production. Using an in-depth case study approach, the usefulness of this framework is tested by examining the experience of Malawi Mangoes, a company established to promote smallholder exports. Malawi Mangoes was initially funded by private equity, but despite a number of challenges along the way, was soon able to attract development funding and integrate smallholders from surrounding villages throughout-grower schemes. Analysis of the case shows both the usefulness of the framework and the lost potential in implementing agricultural development policy. The authors conclude that the framework is useful for linking current debates on agricultural development interventions, but that the findings of critical GPN research need to be taken into account when developing agricultural development interventions in order to respect the ‘do no harm’ principle.