From farm to market: the data behind Guinea-Bissau’s US$30 million agrifood opportunity
- Beatriz Martinez
- Viviana Perego
September 01, 2026
Higher farm productivity and better storage, processing, transport, and market access could help Guinea-Bissau capture nearly US$30 million annually across its rice and cashew value chains. Pictured, farmers working the field in countryside of Bissau, the nation’s capital. / Image:
Guinea-Bissau’s agriculture sector is the backbone of its economy, contributing between 30 and 50 percent of GDP and providing income for 85 percent of the population. Yet low productivity, climate vulnerability, post-harvest losses, and weak market connectivity continue to constrain the country’s agricultural potential. Recent World Bank assessments suggest that combining agroecological approaches that increase productivity and resilience with agrologistics investments that reduce losses and improve market access could help unlock substantial economic gains, including nearly US$30 million annually in the rice and cashew sectors alone, equivalent to about 3% of the country’s agricultural GDP.
Building more productive and resilient farming systems
Guinea-Bissau is one of the world’s leading producers of raw cashew nuts. The crop accounts for more than 90 percent of exports and contributes approximately one-quarter of national GDP. Yet despite its importance, agricultural production remains constrained by low cashew nut yields below 0.4 t/ha compared to 0.8-1 t/ha in India and Vietnam. The rice sector faces similar productivity gaps, with yields around 2 t/ha compared to above 6 t/ha in most of Asia.
The country lost around 188,000 hectares of tree cover between 2001 and 2021 due to land clearing for farming. Unsustainable land-use practices have contributed to soil degradation and erosion, undermining the productivity of both upland and lowland farming systems and leading to further deforestation. This perpetuates a cycle that undermines environmental sustainability and threatens the long-term sustainability of agricultural outputs and rural livelihoods. “Daqui a alguns anos não poderemos mais morar aqui” (“In a few years we won’t be able to live here anymore”) is a statement frequently heard from interviewed farmers and village chiefs across the country.
Agroecological approaches can help reverse these trends. Practices such as agroforestry, crop diversification, crop rotation, nutrient recycling, and soil restoration can improve the productivity, resilience, and sustainability of agricultural systems while reducing dependence on external inputs. To achieve broader adoption, these practices need to be complemented by access to small-scale mechanization to ease labor constraints and by sustainable seed systems that improve seed quality.
Promising examples include cashew orchards combined with annual crops, systems of rice intensification (SRI), agroforestry horticultural perimeters, and small-scale free-range poultry farming. These approaches have delivered encouraging results in other countries. In Asia, SRI has significantly improved yields while reducing water use by 30-50 percent and seed requirements by 80-90 percent.
Together, these approaches can help farmers diversify income sources, improve soil health, and strengthen the resilience of farming systems, while opening new opportunities for women and youth in production, input supply, and local services.
Capturing more value beyond the farm gate
Improving agricultural production alone will not transform Guinea-Bissau’s agrifood sector. Farmers may adopt more productive and resilient practices, but if crops cannot be stored, processed, or transported efficiently, much of the potential value is lost before reaching consumers. Agroecology helps create value on the farm, while agrologistics helps capture that value across agricultural value chains. Sustainable competitiveness requires both. However, the country’s agrologistics system faces major constraints across infrastructure, services, and governance, faring worse than the average across low-income countries (Figure 1).
Figure 1. Logistics Performance Index Score: Guinea-Bissau vs. low-income countries
Poor road connectivity, limited storage capacity, outdated logistics services, and cumbersome trade procedures increase costs and reduce competitiveness. Indeed, agrologistics hurdles represent the main challenge to selling crops for a vast majority of farmers (Figure 2).
Figure 2. Farmers’ main challenges to selling crops
The data illustrate the scale of the challenge. In the cashew sector, post-harvest losses can reach 25 percent, while agrologistics costs account for approximately 34 percent of the export price. For every kilogram of cashew exported, about US$0.55 is absorbed by transportation, handling, storage, customs procedures, and other logistics-related costs (Figure 3).
Figure 3. Expot price components: raw cashew nuts
Despite the strategic importance of rice in the national diet, local production faces similar agrologistics constraints. Inadequate drying, storage, and milling facilities, combined with rural road infrastructure, contribute to post-harvest losses of up to 30 percent. Based on the available data, farmers receive only around one-third of the retail price, whereas agrologistics costs along the value chain represent approximately 42% of the retail price, US$0.48 for each kilogram of rice sold (Figure 4).
Figure 4. Price components: locally produced rice
These inefficiencies, on the other hand, translate into a significant economic opportunity. Targeted investments in road quality, adequate storage facilities, port efficiency, and digital logistics could generate nearly US$30 million in annual savings across Guinea-Bissau’s cashew and rice value chains. The greatest returns would come from investments tailored to the specific bottlenecks of each sector. For cashew, priorities include expanding secure local storage facilities, rehabilitating and maintaining rural roads, implementing trade facilitation and digital logistics tools, and expanding processing capacity. For rice, high-impact investments include improving access to threshing equipment and expanding collective processing capacity, particularly through modern milling facilities.
Turning evidence into action
Guinea-Bissau can accelerate agricultural transformation by simultaneously strengthening production systems and improving the infrastructure and services that connect farmers to markets:
· Providing extension services and continuous technical assistance to promote nature-based and agroecological practices relying on intercropping, agroforestry, nutrient cycling, and soil restoration, in order to improve productivity and enhance resilience of farmers and the food system to external shocks.
· Strengthening strategic planning through participatory processes involving farmers, government, and other community stakeholders, to enable communities to identify tailored investments suited to local context and needs.
· Designing and adopting a national (agro)logistics strategy to align fragmented policies, clarify institutional responsibilities, and guide coordinated investments across sectors.
· Rehabilitating and maintaining climate-resilient rural transport infrastructure to reduce vulnerability and improve year-round market access.
· Strengthening trade facilitation for simplified customs procedures and improved alignment with trade protocols from ECOWAS and the African Cashew Alliance (ACA).
· Enhancing digital connectivity for the efficient use of facilities, enhanced monitoring and oversight, and disintermediation.
Beatriz Martinez
Agriculture and Food Consultant
