Project title: Agrologistics Programme Mexico 2030
Project number: SMP-19069
Requesting country: Mexico
Year: 2019
Budget: € 40,000
Project leader: Peter Ravensbergen
Knowledge institute: Wageningen University & Research
Project partners: Dutch Embassy in Mexico, Consejo Nacional Agropecuario, Levarht / Fresh Mex, RVO, United Producers of Mexico

Summary
In the National Project 2018-2024 of the Mexican administration the focus of the agricultural policy is on strengthening smallholders, especially located in south (east) Mexico, by improving their income and by giving access to national and international markets. In this context agrologistics is of major importance. Investment in technology pays off only when markets are aligned and prices less volatile. Hence an integrated view on the supply chain is required to avoid quality decay and losses of agricultural products.

Agrologistics includes all activities in the agri-food chain, in order to match the supply of the product with the demand of the market. Starting point is the market demand. Based on the market demand the supply chains are formed, taking into consideration the unique characteristics of agrologistics. One of the best return on investment for rural development is investment in agrologistics and related infrastructure. However, agrologistics is more than only infrastructure. It includes also institutional development, organisation of the supply chains, knowledge development, and innovation. These issues cannot be solved by one party only. This requires public-private partnerships in which transdisciplinary consortia are encouraged to collaborate.

The main objective of this project is to design an innovation programme called “Agrologistics Platforms Mexico 2030”. This programme will improve the potential of the agri-food system in Mexico. This project will create the opportunities for designing this programme with all stakeholders and to organise the required budget from public and private sources. This innovation programme will increase the cooperation between both governments. Also private companies and academia from both countries will benefit from this innovation programme by technology transfer, trade of technology and (fresh) produce, service providing investment, etc.

Presentation