ICAR AICE-JRF/SRF Agri Value Chain Management: practice questions

1 · Global food systems · medium

In one country, a fresh vegetable moves through an export chain with written standards, a domestic supermarket chain with preferred suppliers, and open wholesale markets supplying street vendors. What does a value-chain analyst conclude?

1. Only the export chain matters because it earns foreign exchange
2. The wholesale channel will disappear within a few seasons
3. Prices must be equal across the channels because it is the same product
4. The same commodity runs through parallel channels with different prices, rules and risks, and each should be mapped separately

2 · Value-chain thinking compared with supply-chain thinking · medium

The filière approach to commodity analysis was developed mainly by:

1. French agricultural economists from the 1960s, working on export crops in francophone Africa
2. Michael Porter, as a tool for firm strategy
3. World-systems sociologists as a critique of Porter
4. The WTO to measure trade in value added

3 · External drivers: globalisation and trade · medium

A requirement that packaged spices carry a specific nutrition label format in the importing country falls mainly under which WTO agreement?

1. The Agreement on Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures (SPS)
2. The Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT)
3. The Agreement on Agriculture's export subsidy rules
4. The Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights

4 · External drivers: globalisation and trade · hard

A country abolishes the state marketing board that bought all cotton at a fixed price and supplied seed and fertiliser on credit. Private ginners enter. Which outcome is most consistent with experience from such reforms?

1. Farmers' incomes necessarily fall because private firms always pay less
2. Quality automatically improves because competition can reward it
3. Farmers' share of the export price may rise, but input credit and quality control can collapse without private coordination
4. Nothing changes for farmers, because boards and private ginners perform identical roles in buying, input credit and quality control

5 · The role of the consumer · medium

Why does consumer demand for credence attributes such as origin or sustainability tend to tighten vertical coordination in a chain?

1. Because credence attributes lower production costs
2. Because consumers can test the attribute themselves at the point of purchase, so suppliers must be closely monitored to avoid rejections
3. Because credence attributes are only found in bulk commodities
4. Because the attribute must be verified and kept identifiable from farm to shelf, needing audits, segregation or traceability

6 · Value-chain governance · easy

In contract farming, 'side-selling' means:

1. The contracting company selling its surplus produce on to a second processor when its own plant runs at full capacity
2. Farmers growing a second crop on the side of the field
3. Farmers selling contracted produce to other buyers when spot prices are higher, sometimes leaving advances unpaid
4. Retailers selling produce below cost

7 · Value-chain governance · hard

A contracted farmer will harvest 400 kg. The company pays 25 CU per kg and deducts 500 CU for seed and fertiliser it advanced. If the farmer side-sells the whole crop and does not repay the advance, above what spot price does side-selling give the farmer more cash than honouring the contract?

1. 23.75 CU per kg
2. 25.00 CU per kg
3. 26.25 CU per kg
4. 1.25 CU per kg

8 · Upgrading in value chains · easy

A dairy cooperative that previously sold raw milk begins making and selling cheese. In Humphrey and Schmitz's typology this is primarily:

1. Process upgrading
2. Product upgrading
3. Inter-sectoral upgrading
4. Downgrading

9 · Upgrading in value chains · hard

Humphrey and Schmitz found that insertion into quasi-hierarchical (captive) chains typically:

1. Blocks all forms of upgrading
2. Encourages functional upgrading because lead firms want suppliers to build their own brands and design
3. Has no effect on upgrading
4. Supports fast process and product upgrading but hinders functional upgrading into design and branding

10 · External drivers: climate and technology · medium

Which statement about climate impacts on agri-food value chains is most accurate?

1. Impacts reach beyond the farm to roads, storage, processing and quality, so the whole chain must plan for them
2. Climate affects only the farm stage
3. Climate affects only consumers through prices, since farms adapt by switching crops and traders simply pass costs on
4. Climate change affects only irrigated agriculture