In 2016, the Goat Agribusiness Project (GAP) set up Innovation Platforms for the Indigenous Goat Value Chain in South Africa.
In recent years, innovation platforms (IPs) have become increasingly prevalent in the agricultural development arena to bring together value chain actors for the purpose of creating linkages, surfacing and discussing issues, defining possible solutions and creating research agendas, coordination of activities, disseminating research, streamlining and improving the value chain process, amongst other things.
With the goat value chain in South Africa being underdeveloped and few formal horizontal or vertical linkages existing, GAP has been facilitating IPs for almost 8 years now with the goal of building relationships and providing a useful forum among the value chain actors in favour of rural, smallholder farmers. While innovation platforms are not new, there is no record of any IPs related to goat value chains in South Africa to date.
