the ambivalent impact of coffee certification on farmers welfare a matched panel approach for cooperatives in central kenya certification is promoted to improve rural welfare through better market access and improved agricultural practices we compare net effects of fairtrade and utz certified coffee production in central kenya using a matched panel from 218 farm households that belong to three cooperatives and were visited twice in 2009 and 2013 we distinguish between effects at field farm household cooperative community and market levels both certification regimes improved coffee returns but fairtrade was more effective in coffee processing whereas utz contributed to productivity under stagnating coffee prices fairtrade farmers increased their coffee specialization while utz farmers reduced coffee areas but increased yield

cash transfer programs with income multipliers procampo in mexico abstract cash transfer programs create multiplier effects when recipients put the money they receive to work to generate further incomes when this is the case the ultimate income effects are multiples of the amounts transferred we analyze the procampo program in mexico that was introduced to compensate farmers for the anticipated negative effect of nafta on the prices of basic crops the transfer rules and the timing of the panel data collected allow unique control of biases in this impact analysis we find that the multiplier among ejido sector recipients is in the range 1 5 2 6 multipliers are higher for households with medium and large farms low numbers of adults in the household nonindigenous backgrounds and located in the center and gulf regions high multipliers reflect income opportunities that had remained unrealized due to liquidity constraints that are relaxed by the transfers opportunities come from the asset endowments that these households received through the land reform particularly irrigated land and they are enhanced by access to technical assistance

testing for non jointness in oil and gas exploration a variable profit function approach although the assumption of non joint production is made in a number of areas of economics its empirical validity is seldom examined in this paper we investigate the hypothesis of non jointness in the context of a multiple output production process which utilizes both fixed and variable inputs specifically we test the hypothesis of almost non jointness in the input quantities and prices as well as the hypothesis that inputs and outputs are separable using data on oil and natural gas exploration in alberta canada to facilitate global tests of these hypotheses we estimate a generalized linear generalized leontief variable profit function both with and without the restrictions implied by nonjointness and by separability on the basis of likelihood ratio tests we reject the hypothesis of separability but are unable to reject the non jointness hypothesis based on the maximum likelihood estimates obtained in the non joint case we examine some empirical issues concerning oil and gas exploration activity

profits and poverty certification s troubled link for nicaragua s organic and fairtrade coffee producers abstract governments donors and ngos have promoted environmental and social certification schemes for coffee producers as certified market channels are assumed to offer higher prices and better incomes additionally it is presumed that these certifications contribute to poverty reduction of smallholders yet gross margins profits and poverty levels of certified smallholder coffee producers have not yet been quantitatively analyzed applying random sampling techniques our quantitative household survey of 327 randomly selected members of conventional organic and organic fairtrade certified cooperatives in nicaragua is complemented by over a hundred qualitative in depth interviews the results show that although farm gate prices of certified coffees are higher than of conventional coffees the profitability of certified coffee production and its subsequent effect on poverty levels is not clear cut per capita net coffee incomes are insufficient to cover basic needs of all coffee producing households certified producers are more often found below the absolute poverty line than conventional producers over a period of ten years our analysis shows that organic and organic fairtrade farmers have become poorer relative to conventional producers we conclude that coffee yield levels profitability and efficiency need to be increased because prices for certified coffee cannot compensate for low productivity land or labor constraints

rural nonfarm employment and incomes in latin america overview and policy implications abstract rural nonfarm employment rnfe and incomes rnfi are crucial to latin american rural households the 11 rural household income studies in this volume reviewed in this paper use 1990s data and show that rnfi averages 40 of rural incomes rnfi and rnfe have grown quickly over the past three decades the review of evidence provided some surprising departures from traditional images of nonfarm activities of latin american rural households in terms of shares of rural incomes 1 nonfarm wage incomes exceed self employment incomes 2 rnfi far exceeds farm wage incomes 3 local rnfi far exceeds migration incomes 4 service sector rnfi far exceeds manufactures rnfi these findings suggest the need for more development program attention to wage employment in the service sector versus the traditional focus on small enterprise manufactures moreover poor households and zones tend to have higher shares in their incomes but lower absolute levels of rnfi as compared to richer households and zones the rnfe of the poor tend to be the low paid nonfarm equivalent of semi subsistence farming raising the capacity of the poor to participate in the better paid types of rnfe is crucial via employment skills training education infrastructure credit finally rnfe has grown fastest and been most poverty alleviating where there are dynamic growth motors in particular in the agricultural sector but also in tourism links to urban areas mining and forestry this means that developing rnf jobs cannot be done at the expense of programs promoting agricultural development

the economics of smallholder organic contract farming in tropical africa summary the paper examines the revenue effects of certified organic contract farming for smallholders and of adoption of organic agricultural farming methods in a tropical african context the comparison in both cases is with farming systems that are organic by default survey data from a large organic coffee contract farming scheme in uganda are reported and analyzed using a standard ols regression and a full information maximum likelihood fiml estimate of the heckman selection model the analysis finds that controlling for a range of factors there are positive revenue effects both from participation in the scheme and more modestly from applying organic farming techniques

do farmers benefit from participating in specialty markets and cooperatives the case of coffee marketing in costa rica1 historically low prices in the conventional coffee market have caused financial and social hardship among coffee farmers in the face of this crisis specialty markets have attracted the attention of the international donor community these market segments have shown consistent growth over the last decade and exhibit price premiums in international markets therefore if higher prices are passed on to farmers access to specialty markets could help to alleviate the crisis brought on by low prices in the conventional sector the present study attempts to identify the factors that determine farmers participation in specialized markets and whether participation in these markets leads to higher prices for farmers a two stage model is used to analyze farmers marketing decisions and their effect on the prices received this procedure allows us to control for the endogeneity bias introduced by the marketing choice our results indicate that farmers participating in the specialty coffee segment do in fact receive higher prices than those participating in conventional channels additionally we find that participation in cooperatives has a positive impact on the probability that a farmer chooses to grow specialty coffee and analogously on the prices that they receive based on these results it seems that efforts to increase participation in the specialty coffee segment and in cooperatives would help to lessen some of the hardships brought on by low prices in the conventional coffee sector

have coffee producers benefited from the new domestic cherry market evidence using panel data from rwanda the article assesses the effects of the new domestic cherry market on coffee growing households in rwanda using panel data findings from combined first differenced with instrumental variable specification and other estimation methods provide evidence that farmers who sell to the cherry market do not increase their expenditures compared to farmers selling to the traditional parchment market the different time lags in terms of when farmers started selling to the new cherry market may explain the lack of statistically significant differences across the two groups it is possible that farmers will adjust their expenditure patterns in subsequent periods after year over year market trends become more apparent to them

conditional cash transfers shocks and school enrolment in nicaragua abstract this work estimates the impacts of a nicaraguan cash transfer programme that pays households conditional on school attendance and family visits to health clinics and seminars a model explores the impact on school enrollment of cash transfers given differences in household wealth labour market opportunities and negative shocks a difference in difference estimation for distinct wealth cohorts reveals that the programme led to a significant improvement in school enrollment outcomes among poor households in coffee cultivating communities the results cast doubt however on proposals that broadly link conditional cash transfers to negative shocks

participation in the farmer owned reserve program a discrete choice model the food and agriculture act of 1977 initiated a fundamental redirection of u s grain policy previous grain policy revolved around supply control via price supports and marketing quotas or allocations now the active role of grain reserves is emphasized the market is given free rein under normal conditions while grain reserves guard against periods of excessively high or low prices a cornerstone of the new policy is the farmer owned reserve for program the for is designed to stabilize grain prices and contribute to food security by encouraging farmers to hold more grain in storage than they would otherwise because the program is voluntary it is important to understand what motivates participation in the for it is also important to quantify at least partially the decision making process if policy makers are to forecast farmer responsiveness to policy actions in recent studies addressing this question little attention has been given to statistical modelling of individual decision making meyers and ryan meyers jolly and ryan burnstein this paper describes an empirical model of the for participation decision using a theoretical choice model and discrete econometrics the major provisions of the for are first outlined next a theoretical choice model based on a stochastic utility function is presented crosssection data for corn and wheat producers gathered by a subcommittee of north central regional project 152 nc 152 are used to estimate empirical models of the decision making process the paper concludes with pertinent policy implications the farmer owned grain reserve

material flow analysis of the forest wood supply chain a consequential approach for log export policies in france part of the french timber transformation industry suffers from difficulties to adapt to recent changes on global markets this translates into net exports of raw wood and imports of transformed products detrimental to both the trade balance and the local creation of wealth at the same time no consistent and homogeneous accounts for wood product production and consumption exist at this time this article first aims at objectifying this situation by undertaking the first material flow analysis of the french forest wood supply chain we then evaluate the potential consequences of various scenarios of raw wood exports reduction policies namely subsidies for consumption or transformation and taxation of exports on both economic outcomes for the different actors and material flows we thus provide an example of coupling material flow analysis with economic modeling in an attempt to move from the diagnostic phase to the assessment of possible actions within a decision making perspective

is biodiversity friendly coffee financially viable an analysis of five different coffee production systems in western el salvador abstract the current trend for reducing shade cover in coffee plantations in northern latin america has prompted concern among conservationists because of its potential implications for the loss of biodiversity to help reverse such a trend a project has been launched to promote biodiversity friendly cultural practices in coffee plantations and the marketing of certified biodiversity friendly coffee this paper examines the financial feasibility of investing in the certification criteria for a biodiversity friendly coffee in farms with different production systems in western el salvador models were developed to estimate net present values and risks associated with the investment for five hypothetical but typical coffee farms 1 traditional polyculture 2 commercial polyculture 3 technified shade less than 1200 m elevation 4 technified shade greater than 1200 m elevation and 5 unshaded monoculture to invest in the biodiversity friendly certification criteria was financially viable in all farms the unshaded monoculture farm type was the most profitable case and the farm under traditional polyculture was the only risk free capital requirements for the investment are low though they increase as shade cover in the farm becomes reduced small cash poor farmers will need assistance to make the up front expenditures required to have the farm certified incentives for certified biodiversity friendly coffee plantations such as tax relief payment for environmental services and soft credits could help make the investment more attractive

impacts of policy means for increased use of forest based bioenergy in norway a spatial partial equilibrium analysis abstract like the european union eu norway has defined quite ambitious targets regarding increased use of bioenergy however the bioenergy market develops relatively slowly and stronger policies seem necessary to reach the targets this study analyses how different policy means high on the agenda in the norwegian energy debate may affect the use of forest based bioenergy in norway the means studied are i subsidies reducing investment costs of district heating installations ii deposit grant for replacement of oil burners with burners based on bioenergy iii feed in supporting energy production in district heating based on bioenergy the study is based on a regionalised partial equilibrium model covering forestry forest industries and the bioenergy sector the advantage of this methodology is that it allows for assessments of the economic potential of bioenergy under different policy alternatives taking into account the competition for raw materials from the forest industries regional differences regarding heat demand and wood fibre supply as well as important spatial aspects connected to inter regional transport and trade of wood the results of the study give medium term projections for bioenergy use in norway under different bioenergy policy regimes some investments in bioburners in central heating systems and new district heating based on bioenergy are profitable at the current energy prices but policy incentives in terms of grants subsidies or feed in systems make it possible to overcome inertia in investments decisions and provide substantial increase in the supply of bioenergy the results show that the analysed policy means are effective at the current energy price levels and have a significant impact on bioenergy production while some results are specific to norway other results and the methodology used are of more general value also to other european countries

certification and access to export markets adoption and return on investment of organic certified pineapple farming in ghana summary global food markets demand adherence to food standards by farmers in developing countries such as globalgap and organic certifications this paper analyzes the adoption and profitability of certified farming using farm level data of 386 ghanaian small scale pineapple farmers we employ an endogenous switching regression model to examine the adoption and impact of organic certification on the return on investment roi in pineapple farming the empirical results indicate that both organic and globalgap certification achieve a positive roi however organic certified farming yields a significantly higher roi than globalgap certified farmers mainly due to the price premium on the organic market

tracking the quality premium of certified coffee evidence from ethiopia summary certification of voluntary sustainability standards vss is rapidly increasing in global value chains while consumers mostly in developed countries are willing to pay significant premiums for the certification of such standards it is not well understood how effectively these incentives are transmitted to producing countries we study vss more in particular fair trade and organic certification in ethiopia s coffee sector the country s most important export commodity using a unique census of transaction data at the export level and large scale data at the production level we find that transmission of export quality premiums to coffee producers is limited with only less than one third of this premium being passed on and we find limited evidence of effects due to communal investments moreover as quality premiums are small and average production levels in these settings are low we estimate that these premiums would only lead to an increased income for coffee farmers of 22 usd per year even with a perfect transmission scenario and therefore would have little impact on the welfare of the average coffee farmer given that the vss studied are characterized by the highest premiums among vss schemes it can be assumed that even lower benefits from other vss certification schemes trickle down to producers

rice farmers preferences for fairtrade contracting in benin evidence from a discrete choice experiment abstract private standards such as fairtrade have emerged as a response to consumer civil society and corporate concerns about the production conditions of imported food many studies have investigated the welfare implications of smallholder participation in fairtrade schemes and consumers willingness to pay for fairtrade and other labelled products on the other hand no study has yet investigated farmers preferences for fairtrade and other private standards such insights would be valuable to improve the efficiency of certification schemes and ensure that they are tailored to farmers needs using a choice experiment this study investigates the preferences of smallholder rice farmers in benin for fairtrade and organic standards and compares the value of three types of contracts domestic fairtrade and fairtrade organic the results indicate that farmers positively value contracts but prefer domestic over fairtrade contracts because the former involve fewer requirements at current market prices farmers are willing to accept a fairtrade contract that includes fertiliser and child labour restrictions and a social premium but they are not willing to accept a fairtrade organic contract that completely prohibits chemical input use the results imply that adding organic requirements to fairtrade contracts may undermine the adoption and spread of fairtrade certification in the beninese rice sector

fair trade organic coffee cooperatives migration and secondary schooling in southern mexico abstract we explore three trends in rural southern mexico fair trade coffee migration and conditional cash transfers that could explain the rapid rise in education from 1995 2005 using survey data from 845 coffee farming households in oaxaca and chiapas mexico results from a household fixed effects model show that household participation in a fair trade organic cooperative contributed to about a 0 7 year increase in schooling for girls us migration opportunities appear to have even stronger positive impacts on schooling for females although participation in fair trade organic cooperatives appears also to have increased male schooling increased migration opportunities have had an indeterminate effect for males

stimulating fuelwood consumption through public policies an assessment of economic and resource impacts based on the french forest sector model abstract stimulating renewable energy is a crucial objective in view of tackling climate change and coping with future fossil fuel scarcity in france fuelwood appears to be an important source for the renewable energy mix using the french forest sector model our paper aims to assess the impacts of three policy options to stimulate fuelwood consumption a consumer subsidy a producer subsidy and a fixed demand contract policy we explored their impacts in terms of five groups of criteria 1 forest resource dynamics 2 variations in wood products prices and quantities consumed and produced 3 trade balance 4 budgetary costs and 5 variations in agent surpluses we show that no policy option is more desirable than another on the basis of all of these criteria and that trade offs will determine which is the best policy option to be implemented

comparing the profitability of organic and conventional production in family farming empirical evidence from brazil abstract several studies have compared the profitability of organic and conventional producers but present very conflicting results although in the majority of these papers selection bias due to observables is accounted for the possibility of selection based on unobservables has been largely overlooked in this paper we compare these two types of producers using a large and unique data of about 4 2 million family farmers in brazil standard propensity score matching techniques are used together with the procedure recently developed by oster forthcoming to address concerns about omitted variables our results confirm the working hypothesis that organic producer s profits are lower than conventional ones

decoupling standards from practice the impact of in house certifications on coffee farms environmental and social conduct in this paper we investigate whether coffee farms that have been granted in house socio environmental certification from a global buyer display better social and environmental conduct compared to non certified farms we perform an econometric analysis using data from an original cross country survey covering 575 farms in various regions of brazil colombia costa rica guatemala and mexico we find that farms that have been granted in house certification demonstrate better environmental but not better social conduct than non certified farms we find also that the positive relationship between in house certification and environmental conduct is stronger if the farm sells to a cooperative and if it is located in an institutionally weak country finally we find that the institutional strength of the farm s home country has a positive influence on its social conduct we discuss how our analysis contributes to the literature on the social and environmental impacts of certifications and to scholarship in global value chains social and environmental upgrading

organic agriculture and fair trade a happy marriage a case study of certified smallholder black pepper farmers in india summary this study examines whether the joint adoption of organic and fair trade systems adds additional benefits to smallholders in developing countries we use panel data collected from 300 smallholder rural black pepper growers in kerala india to assess household welfare impacts we apply a multinomial endogenous switching regression model along with a counterfactual analysis to estimate certification effects results show that both certification systems have a significant impact on income compared to conventional black pepper farming however membership in fair trade marketing systems does not increase income of organic farmers but has positive effects on asset accumulation of smallholder farmers

effect of certified organic production systems on poverty among smallholder farmers empirical evidence from kenya summary this study evaluates the effect of certified organic production on poverty in smallholder production systems data was collected from cross sectional survey of local market oriented peri urban vegetable and rural honey producers in kenya poverty was measured using the multidimensional poverty methodology and endogenous switching probit model used to assess the effect of certified organic production on multidimensional poverty findings were that certified producers were less likely to be multidimensional poor compared to their counterfactual case of not participating in organic certification schemes additionally noncertified producers would be less likely to be poor if they were to participate in organic certification production

the impact of global warming on agriculture a ricardian analysis reply we measure the economic impact of climate on land prices using cross sectional data on climate farmland prices and other economic and geophysical data for almost 3 000 counties in the united states we find that higher temperatures in all seasons except autumn reduce average farm values while more precipitation outside of autumn increases farm values applying the model to a global warming scenario shows a significantly lower estimated impact of global warming on u s agriculture than the traditional production function approach and in one case suggests that even without co sub 2 fertilization global warming may have economic benefits for agriculture 16 refs 5 figs 5 tabs

fair trade organic coffee production in nicaragua sustainable development or a poverty trap abstract this article assesses the impact of fair trade organic coffee production on the well being of small scale farmers in nicaragua studying the results of organic management is crucial for evaluating the advantages of fair trade because approximately half of all fair trade coffee is also organically certified a wide range of farmers representatives of cooperatives and export companies in nicaragua were interviewed during seven months of field work between 2005 and 2008 fair trade organic production raises farmer income when low intensity organic farming is an alternative to low intensity conventional farming however low intensity farming produces very little coffee in the case of the most marginalized farmers keeping these farmers in poverty with higher intensities of management the economic advantages of fair trade organic production largely depend on prices in the mainstream market

fair trade organic coffee rural livelihoods and the agrarian question southern mexican coffee families in transition summary we use a random sample of coffee producing households in southern mexico to compare opportunities associated with government subsidies and migration to the role of fair trade organic coffee in household livelihoods although land and labor returns among fair trade organic coffee growers are higher than for conventional growers differences in yields are more important than price premiums moreover investment in education and labor opportunities outside coffee dominate those in fair trade organic coffee the results highlight the value of an integrated approach to the agrarian question that improves productivity and prices and supports other pathways for improving incomes

biomass for electricity in the eu 27 potential demand co2 abatements and breakeven prices for co firing abstract this paper analyses the potential of biomass based electricity in the eu 27 countries and interactions with climate policy and the eu ets we estimate the potential biomass demand from the existing power plants and we match our estimates with the potential biomass supply in europe furthermore we compute the co2 abatement associated with the co firing opportunities in european coal plants we find that the biomass demand from the power sector may be very high compared with potential supply we also identify that co firing can produce high volumes of co 2 abatements which may be two times larger than that of the coal to gas fuel switching we also compute biomass and co2 breakeven prices for co firing results indicate that biomass based electricity remains profitable with high biomass prices when the carbon price is high a euros 16 24 25 35 respectively biomass price per mwh prim for a euros 20 50 respectively carbon price hence the carbon price appears as an important driver which can make profitable a high share of the potential biomass demand from the power sector even with high biomass prices this aims to gain insights on how biomass market may be impacted by the eu ets and others climate policies

the determinants of nonfarm activities and incomes of rural households in mexico with emphasis on education abstract this paper presents the main results of a study of the effects of education as well as other household assets on the choice of activities and incomes of rural mexican households our study examines the various income sources as well as the education of the household s head and its members implications are drawn for rural education and development policies to promote rural nonfarm incomes and employment

the effect of specialty coffee certification on household livelihood strategies and specialisation abstract farm certification is rapidly becoming a sine qua non for access to specialty coffee markets at the centre of these changes are smallholder coffee producers responsible for 80 of global coffee production although rural households are known to depend on more than agricultural production alone the literature on specialty coffee and certification has rather narrowly focused on coffee income and production in this study broader impacts are explicitly taken into account household income was decomposed into categories corresponding to specific income generating activities and coffee income was broken down into price yield and area effects results show that coffee certification encourages farmers to specialise in coffee production increasing coffee income but not total household income at least not in the short run the time and effort required to attain the higher coffee income offered by certified production means farmers have to give up other activities this substitution effect cancels out the income effect such that there is no increase in total household income the lack of an effect on total household income suggests the return to the additional labour effort required for certified coffee production is not higher than in other activities questioning the benefits of certification for small scale producers

after neoliberalism the politics of reregulation in mexico neoliberal economic reforms rather than unleashing market forces can result in new institutions for market governance by vacating institutionalized policy domains neoliberal reforms can trigger two step reregulation processes as first political entrepreneurs launch projects to build support coalitions by reregulating markets and second societal groups respond to these projects by mobilizing to influence the terms of reregulation depending on the strengths and strategies of politicians and societal groups reregulation processes result in varied institutions for market governance the article develops this argument by analyzing how neoliberal reforms in mexico led to the construction of distinct institutions for market governance across four states chiapas guerrero oaxaca and puebla the findings from mexico highlight the importance of moving beyond the questions of why developing countries choose neoliberal policies and how they implement them students of the political economy of development should shift their attention instead to understanding the kinds of new institutions that replace those destroyed or displaced by neoliberal reforms

mitigating factors assessing the costs of reducing ghg emissions abstract the debate over the costs of ghg emission reduction has become more complex recently as disagreements over the existence of economic and environmental double dividends have been added to discussions over the existence of a negative cost potential we argue that basic assumptions about economic efficiency the sub optimality of the baseline and the rate of technical change are more important than model structure and we underline the importance of the timing of decisions for determining the costs moreover the use of a single baseline no policy scenario and several policy intervention scenarios may be fundamentally misleading in the longer term simply because the very idea of a business as usual scenario is deeply problematic ultimately the debate turns on political judgments about the desirability of alternative development paths

paying for environmental services an analysis of participation in costa rica s psa program summary costa rica has long been a leader among developing countries in the design of and experimentation with innovative environmental programs since 1997 costa rica s pagos de servicios ambientales payments for environmental services program has provided payments to more than 4 400 farmers and forest owners for reforestation forest conservation and sustainable forest management activities econometric analysis of a survey of farmers and forest owners including both psa participants and nonparticipants shows that farm size human capital and household economic factors and information variables significantly influence participation in psa program alternatives large farmers and forest owners are disproportionately represented among program participants

sector based political analysis of energy transition green shift in the forest policy regime in france abstract this article examines energy transition political process from a sector based approach through the analysis of recent shift in the french forest policy regime we demonstrate that since 2007 energy transition policies have led to a harvesting turn within the french forest policy framework meaning that priority is given to wood mobilisation mainly for biomass uses in addition our findings suggest that the political authority wielded by the state over forest policy has shifted from forest administrative services to energy agencies and local authorities finally we show that although implementation of the harvesting turn is a cause of sectoral and inter sectoral tensions energy transition challenge also contributes to a process of re institutionalisation of mediation relationships among forestry stakeholders and wood based industries representatives the article concludes by arguing that sectors should retain relevant institutional frameworks for actors when choosing political arrangements required for implementing energy transition policy

global warming and german agriculture impact estimations using a restricted profit function this study uses the concept of shadow prices formeasuring the impacts of climate change by estimatinga restricted profit function rather than a cost or aproduction function the explanatory power of the modelis increased because of an endogenous outputstructure using low aggregated panel data on westerngerman farmers the results imply that the agricultural production process is significantly influenced by climate conditions simulation results using a 2 co2 climate scenario show positive impactsfor all regions in germany interestingly the spatialdistribution of the gains is indicating no advantagefor those regions which currently suffer frominsufficient temperature finally the importance ofan endogenous output structure is confirmed by thefinding that the desired product mix will drasticallychange

walk the talk private sustainability standards in the ugandan coffee sector abstractwe investigate the welfare and productivity implications of private sustainability standards in the coffee sector in uganda we use cross sectional household survey data and an instrumental variable method with instruments that pass weak identification and over identification restrictions we find that triple utz rainforest alliance 4c certification increases income and land and labour productivity and reduces poverty double fairtrade organic certification is found to be associated with higher producer prices but results in lower land and labour productivity and thereby fails to increase producer income and contribute to poverty reduction we conclude that private sustainability standards do not always live up the expectations they create towards consumers

rural nonfarm employment and income diversification in colombia abstract using data for rural households from colombia we find that off farm employment contributes a significant share 45 on average to household income but that the importance of off farm income and returns to household labor vary over the income distribution analysis reveals significant gains from specialization but for households able to specialize no systematic differences in returns to labor between farm and nonfarm sources we conclude that in colombia there is no conflict between development of the farm and the nonfarm sector but that to maximize gains from nonfarm development and reduce the scope for undesirable distributional consequences policies enabling households to specialize might be called for

climate change and agriculture the role of international trade predictions of future climate and atmospheric conditions are reviewed and the implications for agriculture in different areas of the world are identified the swopsim static world policy simulation model used to evaluate the worldwide economic effects of climate change is described an economic sensitivity analysis of concurrent yield losses in major grain producing regions considering the possibility of concurrent changes in production potential elsewhere in the world is reported agricultural impacts of climate change based on three general circulation models are evaluated

the impact of coffee price changes on rural households in uganda employing household survey data covering the periods 1992 1993 1995 1996 and 1999 2000 this article shows for the case of uganda that a coffee market liberalization followed by a price boom was associated with substantial reductions in poverty which could even be sustained when prices went down again coffee is not planted by the richest farmers and the gains from higher coffee prices accrued to poorer and richer coffee farmers alike nor were poorer farmers hurt disproportionately when prices fell in addition we find strong spillovers from coffee production to other agriculture which tends to favor the poor and to nonagricultural activities these multiplier effects are concentrated in coffee regions in an economic environment characterized by a booming agricultural sector coffee farmers were able to accommodate the negative price shock in particular through agricultural diversification general agricultural growth also cushioned possible negative multiplier effects in coffee regions overall the case of coffee in uganda thus lends support to the view that agricultural trade liberalization is beneficial for the poor

global private regulation and value chain restructuring in indonesian smallholder coffee systems summary consumer concerns over the environmental and social conditions of coffee production have led to the proliferation of sustainability codes certification schemes and labeling claims in the sector this paper addresses how the global private regulation of ethical and environmental standards is having several implications for value chain structures and institutions in the smallholder coffee systems of indonesia global private regulation is driving structural changes in modes of farmer organization trader farmer relationships and is resulting in the increased upstream penetration of multinational trading companies into coffee producing areas across indonesia an unintended consequence of these changes in the future may be to increase transaction costs along the value chain and to exert an overall downward pressure on farm gate prices

a survey of the economics of fair trade fair trade has spread in developing countries as an initiative aimed at lifting poor smallholder farmers out of poverty by providing them with premium prices availability of credit and improved community development and social goods fair trade is also viewed as a niche market for high value products in a context of globalization and trade liberalization policies that affect smallholder farmers in developing countries the question of whether fair trade affects the welfare of rural farmers however is particularly contentious this paper provides a review of the fair trade literature both theoretical and empirical with a specific focus on the analysis of small scale producer s welfare in developing countries our review shows that while most empirical papers have focused on the impacts of fair trade on prices and income our review highlights the importance of limited market access and changes in productivity likewise little is known about the impacts of fair trade on labor markets and human capital investments persistent methodological challenges make it challenging however to assess the causal impact of this certification and labelling initiative

income strategies among rural households in mexico the role of off farm activities abstract off farm activities generate on average more than half of farm households incomes in the mexican ejido sector participation in these activities helps reduce poverty and contributes to greater equality in the distribution of income this paper analyzes the determinants of access to off farm sources of income across households we find that education plays a major role in accessing better remunerated nonagricultural employment adults of indigenous ethnic origin suffer from an educational lag and have less access to off farm nonagricultural employment than non indigenous adults at identical educational levels the regional availability of off farm employment strongly affects participation in addition women are differentially limited by distance to urban centers in their ability to gain off farm employment

the economic sustainability of certified coffee recent evidence from mexico and peru consumers increasingly act on preferences for a more just and sustainable world by purchasing certified agricultural products using survey data from coffee growers in mexico and peru we explore the economic sustainability of certified coffee looking at conventional fair trade organic and rainforest alliance certified growers the analysis reveals that yields rather than price premiums are most important for increasing net cash returns for coffee growing households given the link between net returns and producer participation in certified coffee schemes the findings suggest that certification norms that permit improving yields are essential for improving grower welfare and attracting and maintaining growers

disentangling the effects of fair trade on the quality of malian cotton the increasing importance of premium segments and private labels raise skepticism about the ability of fair trade to help smallholders compete in high value added markets using panel data collected in mali this paper contributes to the debate by estimating the impact of fairtrade certification on the quality of malian cotton controlling for the nonrandom certification of producers results show a significant impact on the quality of cotton produced by both certified and geographically close noncertified growers via spillover effects the analysis suggests that contract farming enforced by third parties and demonstration effects foster the adoption of innovative agricultural practices

mainstreaming fair trade coffee from partnership to traceability summary this article analyzes the recent growth of fair trade and the mainstreaming of this previously alternative arena focusing on coffee i identify a continuum of buyers ranging from mission driven enterprises that uphold alternative ideas and practices based on social ecological and place based commitments to quality driven firms that selectively foster fair trade conventions to ensure reliable supplies of excellent coffee to market driven corporations that largely pursue commercial industrial conventions rooted in price competition and product regulation using a commodity network approach my analysis illuminates the impacts of diverse buyer relations on producer groups and how relations are in some cases shifting from partnership to traceability

fair trade and free entry can a disequilibrium market serve as a development tool abstract the fair trade ft coffee initiative attempts to channel charity from consumers to poor producers via increased prices we show that the rules of the ft system permit this rent to be eliminated due to free entry and costly excess certification of output using data from an association of coffee cooperatives in central america we verify that expected producer benefits are close to 0 when we take into account the output that is certified but not sold as ft our results illustrate how free entry undermines the attempt at extending charity via a price distortion in an otherwise competitive market

transforming or reproducing conventional socioeconomic relations introducing a regulationist framework for the assessment of fairtrade summary the certification based fair trade initiative is usually described as an alternative form of organizing production trade and consumption with the goal of advancing the situation of marginalized producers and workers while much of the fair trade literature has analyzed the system s direct impacts on its beneficiaries some strands have sought to determine its transformative potential vis a vis capitalist social relations in an attempt to contribute to the latter debate this paper introduces an analytical framework for the assessment of fairtrade built on the basis of the french regulation approach this perspective which focuses on the specific ways in which fairtrade structures and institutionalizes socioeconomic relations seeks to examine this system from a holistic perspective privileging the analysis of the qualitative changes it produces in economic institutions and structures this article presents the main assumptions and concepts developed by the regulation approach and proposes a case based research design that uses them to analyze how transformative fairtrade proves to be and the impacts it produces on specific economic sectors this methodological exposition is illustrated with examples from the case of fairtrade wine produced in argentina and consumed in the united kingdom

sustainability standards gender and nutrition among smallholder farmers in uganda abstractsustainability standards are gaining in importance in global markets for high value foods while previous research has shown that participating farmers in developing countries may benefit through income gains nutrition impacts have hardly been analysed we use survey data from smallholder coffee farmers in uganda certified under fairtrade organic and utz to analyse impacts on food security and dietary quality estimates of instrumental variable models and simultaneous equation systems show that certification increases calorie and micronutrient consumption mainly through higher incomes and improved gender equity in certified households women have greater control of coffee production and monetary revenues from sales

heat or power how to increase the use of energy wood at the lowest cost abstract we compute the optimal subsidy level for fuelwood consumption that makes it possible to achieve the french biomass energy consumption target for this purpose we model the competition and trade offs between the consumption of fuelwood for heat fw h and the consumption of fuelwood for electricity fw e to do so we couple a forest sector model with an electricity simulation model and we test different scenarios combining fw h and fw e that account for contrasting potential increases in the carbon price and the potential reduction in the number of nuclear plants we assess the implications of these scenarios on 1 the budgetary costs for the government 2 industrial wood producers profits 3 cost savings in the power sector for the different scenarios tested and 4 the carbon balance we show that the scenario with the highest carbon price and the lowest number of nuclear plants is the least expensive from a budgetary perspective indeed when associated with a high carbon price co firing may increase fw e demand with a lower subsidy level which makes it possible to reduce the cost of reaching the target however in this case fw e crowds out part of fw h which may cause political and economic issues from a carbon balance perspective an fw h only scenario performs better than any other scenario that combines fw h and fw e due to the relatively low emissions factors of alternative technologies for electricity generation and in particular nuclear energy

how much more do growers receive for fair trade organic coffee abstract i use a representative sample of coffee growing households in southern mexico to estimate the price premium and gross income gain from participating in fair trade organic markets through grower cooperatives for the 2004 2005 season ft organic growers received an average premium of 12 8 cents per pound yielding a gross income gain of 5 of total household income or about 26 dollars per household member the gain is net of the costs of cooperative participation but not of other costs incurred to become certified and suggests that price premiums alone have a limited potential to increase household returns from growing coffee more broadly speaking the finding raises questions about the persistence of substantial price premiums associated with social or environmental labeling initiatives

food standards certification and poverty among coffee farmers in uganda summary voluntary standards are gaining in importance in global markets for high value foods we analyze and compare impacts of three sustainability oriented standards fairtrade organic and utz on the livelihoods of smallholder coffee farmers in uganda using survey data and propensity score matching with multiple treatments we find that fairtrade certification increases household living standards by 30 and reduces the prevalence and depth of poverty for the other two certification schemes no significant impacts are found several factors that can explain differential impacts are discussed overly general statements about the effects of sustainability standards on smallholder livelihoods may be misleading

level playing fields and laissez faire postliberal development strategy in inegalitarian agrarian economies focusing on the rural sector in latin america this paper explores the microeconomic linkages between distribution and growth which drive the possible reproduction of rural poverty over time the result of this exploration is a neostructuralist perspective which argues that actually existing laissez faire agrarian economies do not present a level playing field and that low wealth farms face disadvantages which tend to reproduce or even deepen sectoral inequality the paper then tries to identify the sorts of public policy and collective action which might modify the nature of growth and distribution in post liberalization agrarian market economy

in the market but not of it fair trade coffee and forest stewardship council certification as market based social change summary this paper discusses two well known market based social change initiatives fair trade coffee and forest stewardship council certification which harness market forces to pursue social and environmental objectives a serious challenge for both is to operate in the conventional market without undermining their original objectives a global commodity chain analysis approach is combined with insights from economic sociology embeddedness theory to explore the social cultural and organizational factors shaping the initiatives governance structures both initiatives are seen to move along opposite organizational trajectories but face similar pressures from conventional market logics practices and dominant actors a preliminary framework is proposed for comparative assessment focusing on distribution of benefits how conventional market institutions may be questioned and how internal governance manages diverse stakeholder interests and influence

social learning and technology adoption the case of coffee pruning in peru a unique natural experiment involving a coffee pruning technology is used to study social learning the yield effects of pruning take two years to appear a characteristic that aids in identifying social learning apart from correlated unobservable variables that are a concern in the social learning and technology adoption literature panel data are employed that start with a private initiative which introduced systematic pruning in central peru and that contain the population of participating growers results show a jump of at least 0 15 in the probability of adoption two years after the first pruning in a grower s group jel classifications d83 q12

confronting the coffee crisis can fair trade organic and specialty coffees reduce small scale farmer vulnerability in northern nicaragua summary this paper links changing global coffee markets to opportunities and vulnerabilities for sustaining small scale farmer livelihoods in northern nicaragua changing governance structures corporate concentration oversupply interchangeable commodity grade beans and low farm gate prices characterize the crisis in conventional coffee markets in contrast certified fair trade and organic are two alternative forms of specialty coffee trade and production that may offer opportunities for small scale producers a research team surveyed 228 farmers to measure the impact of sales on organic and fair trade markets the results suggest that participation in organic and fair trade networks reduces farmers livelihood vulnerability 2004 elsevier ltd all rights reserved

the economics of biodiversity conservation a study of a coffee growing region in the western ghats of india this paper analyses the economics of biodiversity conservation in the context of a tropical forest ecosystem in the western ghats region of india where coffee is the main competitor for land use using primary data covering a cross section of coffee growers the study notes that the opportunity costs of biodiversity conservation in terms of coffee benefits foregone are quite high even after including external costs due to wildlife damages and defensive expenditure to protect against wildlife the npvs and irrs from coffee for all land holding groups were high including external costs these npvs across different land holding groups ranged between rs 17 thousand to over rs 106 thousand per acre at 12 discount rate and the irrs between 16 6 and 23 even if the expected benefits were to decrease by 20 and costs rise by a similar proportion still the irrs from coffee were quite high 19 5 20 1 the study notes that the external costs accounted for between 7 and 15 of the total discounted costs of coffee cultivation and smaller holdings proportionately incurred higher external costs as compared to large holdings the study also notes high transaction costs incurred by the growers to claim compensation for wildlife damages notwithstanding these disincentives the study notes that the local community had a positive attitude towards biodiversity conservation and were willing to pay in terms of spending time for participatory biodiversity conservation taking elephants a keystone and threatened species in asia and the study region for the contingent valuation survey the study notes that the respondents are willing to spend 25 8 humandays per household annually which works to over rs 6003 per household per annum in terms of the income foregone they also preferred a decentralized government institution for participatory biodiversity conservation d 2004 elsevier b v all rights reserved

organic certification agro ecological practices and return on investment evidence from pineapple producers in ghana the recent empirical literature on economic sustainability of certified export crops shows that certification standards that enhance yields are important for improving farm revenues and household welfare however limited evidence exists on the impact of organic certification on the adoption of agro ecological practices in this study we use unique farm level data from pineapple producers in ghana to examine the impact of organic certification on the use of agro ecological practices such as organic fertilizers organic pest and weed control crop rotation and soil and water conservation as well as how using these measures affect farm outcomes such as return on investment our empirical results reveal that organic certification increases agro ecological practice use although from a very low starting point using a generalized propensity score approach we show that there is a positive but nonlinear relationship between the intensity of agro ecological practice use and return on investment

financial market efficiency in an agrarian economy microeconometric analysis of the pakistani punjab the shadow price of capital in production is a useful indicator of the efficacy of the rural financial system using data on participants and non participants in a small farm credit programme from the pakistani punjab this article estimates the shadow price of capital endogenous switching regressions techniques are employed to control for the likely heterogeneity of borrowers versus non borrowers results indicate that an individual selected at random from the population of small farmers would experience a 200 per cent rate of return on the first rupee borrowed from the small farm credit programme indicating a high shadow price of capital and a prima facie case for small farm credit programmes