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Goat producers in Inhassoro follow traditional management practices that lead to low supply of low quality goats. This has negative impacts on profitability, and on market access. Traders who buy in the Inhassoro locality buy only small volumes, and buyers from external markets are unaware of potential market supply in Inhassoro. This interaction of production constraints and limited information flows in the value chain was addressed using a system dynamics model for various commercialization scenarios. Simulation results show that improving goat production and animal health practices alone without concomitant improvements in market access have negative impacts on the financial performance of producers and no impact on other value chain actors. However, interventions that both improve market access and animal health have significant positive impacts on the financial performance of all value chain actors. The model’s explicit treatment of herd dynamics contribute significantly to these conclusions, particularly the lagged production response inherent in livestock breeding systems., Proceedings in Food System Dynamics, Proceedings in System Dynamics and Innovation in Food Networks 2014

A model of a 3-stage food marketing chain is presented for the case of two products. Its extension of existing work is its capacity to examine non-competitive input and output markets in two marketing chains at once, and have them related by demand and cost interactions. The simulated impacts of market power in a single chain generally reproduce those delivered by previous authors. The impacts of market power in related chains are found to depend on linkages between chains in terms of interactions in consumer demand. Interactions between products in costs (economies of scope) generate an interesting result in that a possible market failure is identified that may be offset by the exercise of market power. The generation of farm-level innovation is seen to be largely unaffected by market power, but where market power is exercised the benefits are extracted from farmers and consumers. The conditions under which this occurs can also depend on demand interactions. The report identifies commercial and policy implications and future related research topics. A model of a 3-stage food marketing chain is presented for the case of two products. Its extension of existing work is its capacity to examine non-competitive input and output markets in two marketing chains at once, and have them related by demand and cost interactions. The simulated impacts of market power in a single chain generally reproduce those delivered by previous authors. The impacts of market power in related chains are found to depend on linkages between chains in terms of interactions in consumer demand. Interactions between products in costs (economies of scope) generate an interesting result in that a possible market failure is identified that may be offset by the exercise of market power. The generation of farm-level innovation is seen to be largely unaffected by market power, but where market power is exercised the benefits are extracted from farmers and consumers. The conditions under which this occurs can also depend on demand interactions. The report identifies commercial and policy implications and future related research topics.