Diagnosis of minor root and tuber (MRT) crops value chain operational contexts

The purpose of this report is to provide a diagnosis of the current situation of the MRT crops in those places where the ROTATES project happens, focusing on aspects related to the economic, social and cultural barriers to and enablers of the uptake of MRTs at value chain level and concerning all the cases for the 10 countries involved in the project. It should be noted that the main aim of the report is to provide a background of all the aspects that will be important to consider in the next steps of Workpackage 2 - Value chain development for adoption and new market opportunities, where the specific value chains are going to be studied and where the aforementioned barriers and enablers will be studied in detail. It is also hoped that the material collected will also be useful to other partners in the project. The work carried out has been a desk-based study collecting secondary information of the current situation of the MRTs at value chain level. This has been done considering the supply side (e.g., production, imports) and consumer side (or utilisation in the case of feed). This is because the report wants to highlight the challenges of expanding MRTs, why this needs to be done in a value chain context (i.e., there is the need to build or expand the sequence of productive activities for those crops that go from farmers to their final customers being these consumers or animal producers). Some of the aspects are not only whether the crop is currently produced and, in the country, but also its consumption. In case the crop is not produced or used, then it is crucial to highlight what crop is currently used as the potential introduction of the MRT is going to erode.