Food Systems and the Concept of the “Midstream” Explained — An Interview with Dr Tom Reardon

The middle segment of a food system (logistics, processing, and wholesaling) makes up 40 percent of costs and value-added as food makes its way from farm to fork. In a recent interview with the WFP Food Systems team, Dr. Tom Reardon of Michigan State University explains the concept of the “midstream” and its importance for food security.

Watch the video or read a summary below.

 Defining Food Systems

A food system is a collection of value or supply chains. We can think of it like a fish. Product supply chains, like those for maize, pulses, rice, and vegetables make up the skeleton. Meanwhile, the back fin, powering the fish, is the input supply chain, providing farmers with seeds and fertilizer. Finally, the side fins, steering the fish, are some of the other supply chains needed for a food system to function. This could include the fuel supply chain that powers trucks from farm to market.

Importantly, we must understand that all these supply chains are interdependent. If any of them is missing the whole food system will fail.

The Hidden Middle, or the Midstream

The product supply chain part of the food system has three main parts: the upstream, midstream, and downstream. The upstream is where farmers produce crops, livestock, and fish. The farm segment makes up about 40 percent of the total value added and costs of the whole product supply chain. Another 40 percent of values and costs relate to activities like logistics, processing, and wholesaling, which constitute the midstream. The downstream – retailing and consumption – makes up the last 20 percent. I sometimes call the midstream the “hidden middle”, because it is rarely addressed in debates, despite the crucial role it plays.

Should production by farmers increase substantially, the food they grow won’t be able to reach growing urban populations unless the midstream functions well (tweet this). That is why the transporters, processors, and wholesalers in the midstream are in some way the heroes of food systems, thanks to whom food makes it from farm to family meal.

During our work on the maize supply chain in Nigeria, we could see this clearly. Let’s imagine a huge hourglass; at the base are millions of small farmers growing maize. At the top are millions of consumers of maize flour. In the narrow middle segment of the hourglass, there are just several tens of thousands of maize traders (tweet this). The flow of maize from farmers to consumers, and thus farm incomes and consumer food security, depends on that narrow middle functioning well. 

Evolving Food Systems

Supply chains are growing and getting longer as most of the farmers’ outputs go to urban areas. The rural-urban supply chain for food in Africa has increased by 800 percent in the last 25 years, and in Asia by 1000 percent (tweet this). And as food systems expand and lengthen, particularly due to urbanization, support is needed to make sure supply chains function well.

This enormous increase in a relatively short period requires equally rapid growth in terms of knowledge, skills, inputs, risk management, and regulations. In the meanwhile, increasing risks caused by climate change, disease, and energy cost shocks, lead businesses to seek out smart strategies to address these risks to long vulnerable chains.

The World Food Programme

WFP has a key role to play in helping food systems evolve. Support is needed by various actors, especially those in the midstream. WFP can help private sector actors gain the training and skills to handle larger volumes of food products, address food quality and safety, and improve risk management and resilience. Governments will need guidance in making strategic decisions to encourage businesses to source products from their countries, as well as to make smart investments in physical infrastructure and governance.

A call for Further Research

Many debates on food systems take place in an information vacuum. Strong policy and operations require a good understanding of what these component supply chains really look like. Though farm-level surveys are common, there are few surveys of midstream actors like transporters or millers – the middle of the hourglass! More of these are needed. To fully understand food systems and how they are evolving, further research is required at all levels of the food system.

Dr. Tom Reardon is a professor and researcher at Michigan State University. His research focuses primarily on the links between international development and the food industry. He is one of the world’s top experts on the subject of food systems.

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