The midstream—the “hidden middle” between farm and fork—determines whether agrifood systems deliver reliable, affordable, and safe food at scale. It encompasses the physical flow of goods (aggregation, storage, cold chains, processing, packaging, transport), the market functions that assign value (price formation, quality assurance, certification, wholesale), and the services that keep it all moving (finance, logistics management, ICT, regulatory compliance). When midstream works, it creates value, reduces losses, broadens choice, and anchors livelihoods in rural towns and secondary cities. When it fails, upstream productivity gains leak away and downstream food-security goals become harder to achieve.

This brief reviews how actively and effectively 14 major institutions, with publicly available detailed information, address midstream constraints. Using portfolios (9,571 agrifood projects), current strategy documents, and 3,501 knowledge outputs (publications), we build a composite picture of emphasis, spending, and operational dept.