private food safety and quality standards for fresh produce exporters the case of hortico agrisystems zimbabwe abstract there is evidence that the challenges of complying with stricter food safety and quality standards are acting to exclude small scale producers from export supply chains for high value agricultural products the case of hortico agrisystems illustrates the considerable challenges and costs faced by supermarket suppliers in sourcing from a broad base of small scale producers in the context of evolving food safety and quality standards while small scale producers are able to achieve levels of compliance at least equal to those of large scale producers multi tiered and dynamic systems of control are required to maintain control these need to include measures that facilitate compliance incentives to reward good performance and penalties to punish non compliance in establishing a sustainable supply system in this context both exporters and small scale producers face a steep learning curve in adjusting to new requirements further emphasising the need for supply chains to be responsive to change

agroindustrialization globalization and international development an overview of issues patterns and determinants this paper offers an overview for a special issue on agroindustrialization globalization and international development it sets out a conceptual framework for understanding the links among these three broad phenomena and then discusses emerging issues and evidence concerning the factors conditioning agroindustrialization in developing countries and the subsequent effects on employment poverty and the natural environment we conclude with a research agenda

agrifood grades and standards in the extended mercosur their role in the changing agrifood system is among the most important in terms of trade volumes in the developing world it contains global powerhouses of agroindustry and agriculture such as brazil ranked fourth worldwide and argentina and chile among the global frontrunners in meat and cereals and fruit respectively income growth and rapid urbanization are changing diets increasing the importance of processed foods and nonstaples as bennett s law predicts the most important nonstaples dairy vegetablesfruit meat and coffee have stringent export requirements with respect to g s in organization for economic cooperation and development oecd countries and mercosur domestic markets are themselves becoming more demanding in this regard the paper proceeds as follows section 2 presents definitions and theoretical hypotheses section 3 discusses policy and market determinants of changes in g s and highlights the importance of the emergence of privatized g s section 4 hypothesizes that the changes in g s are adding fuel to the forces of agrifood system concentration in the area section 5 concludes

equilibrium in auctions with entry the authors model entry incentives in auctions with risk neutral bidders and characterize a symmetric equilibrium in which the number of entrants is stochastic the presence of too many potential bidders raises coordination costs that detract from welfare the authors show that the seller and society can benefit from policies that reduce market thickness i e the relative abundance of buyers their analysis extends well known revenue equivalence and ranking theorems but also demonstrates that variations in the auction environment affect optimal policies e g reservation prices in ways not anticipated by models that ignore entry copyright 1994 by american economic association

dynamics of smallholder participation in horticultural export chains evidence from ecuador we study the dynamics of smallholder participation in export value chains focusing on the example of small scale broccoli producers in the highlands of ecuador combining cross sectional data from a household survey with 11 year longitudinal data on export market transactions we explain the hazards of dropping out of a high value export chain we apply a multispell cox duration model that allows us to consider multiple entries and exits from the supply chain we also provide evidence on the welfare impacts associated with participation the results suggest that small scale farmers exit from the export sector is accelerated by high transaction risks experienced in the past while we find no particular evidence for the exclusion of small scale farmers from the export sector we do find that poorer households and female headed households tend to drop out faster especially as long as the sector is still prospering finally when considering welfare effects we do not find evidence that participation translates into tangible benefits for broccoli farmers we discuss some measures that could help improve the long term sustainability of smallholder integration in high value chains

the political economy of regulations and trade wine trade 1860 1970 dramatic changes in the 1860 1970 wine trade provide insights on the political economy of regulations and policy instrument choice and trade an invasion of phylloxera in the 1870s turned france from the world s leading exporter to a massive importer of wine and grapes when french production recovered a combination of tariffs safety regulations and quality standards were introduced to protect its french producers causing dramatic changes in global wine and grape production and trade including in spain italy turkey greece algeria tunisia and morocco changes in wine regulations were caused by relative income and loss aversion factors in political economy tariffs were the preferred policy instruments as they directly restrict imports bring in revenues have low transaction costs and are preferred political instruments when there are information imperfections safety regulations and quality standards including labelling and input prohibitions reduce asymmetric information for consumers or undesirable externalities and simultaneously protected domestic producers regulations were often targeted at imported products wine and raisins when tariffs were ineffective or constrained by institutions such as on colonial wine hence tariffs and quality regulations were jointly used in wine policy both as complements and as substitutes in policy design

can land market reform mitigate the exclusionary aspects of rapid agro export growth abstract agro export growth has been associated with land concentration and employment instability in the wake of exclusionary agro export booms land market reform has been proposed as a way to improve peasant land access through the market developing a model of the economic competitiveness of different classes of producers this paper evaluates the likely effectiveness of land market reform while the model itself gives ambiguous answers numerical simulation identifies a large gap between market price and peasants abilty to pay for land among the components of land market reform policy progressive land taxation appears unlikely to close that competitiveness gap while farm land mortgage banks appear more likely to mitigate exclusionary aspects of growth

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

strategic use of private standards to enhance international competitiveness vegetable exports from kenya and elsewhere abstract the paper examines how european retailers are using private standards for food safety and quality as risk management and competitive tools and the strategic responses of leading kenyan and other developing country supplier exporters to such standards despite measures to harmonize a single market the european fresh produce market is very diverse in terms of consumer preferences structural dynamics and attention to and enforcement of food safety and other standards leading kenyan fresh produce suppliers have re positioned themselves at the high end including high care segments of the market precisely those that are most demanding in terms of quality assurance and food safety systems an array of factors have influenced this strategic positioning including relatively high international freight costs the emergence of more effective competition in mainstream product lines relatively low labor costs for produce preparation and strong market relationships with selected retail chains to succeed in this demanding market segment the industry has had to invest substantially in improved production and procurement systems upgraded pack house facilities and quality assurance food safety management systems

spillovers from modern supply chains to traditional markets product innovation and adoption by smallholders there is an emerging body of literature analyzing how smallholder farmers in developing countries can benefit from modern supply chains however most of the available studies concentrate on export markets and fail to capture spillover effects that modern supply chains may have on local markets here we analyze the case of sweet pepper in thailand which was initially introduced as a product innovation in modern supply chains but which is now widely traded also in more traditional markets using survey data from smallholder farmers and econometric techniques we show that sweet pepper cultivation contributes significantly to higher household incomes strikingly at this stage participation in modern supply chains does not lead to higher incomes than supplying sweet pepper to traditional markets however the results also indicate that missing land titles weak infrastructure conditions and limited access to information constituted serious constraints during the early phases of sweet pepper adoption such constraints need to be overcome so that smallholder farmers are better prepared for the prompt reactions needed under rapidly changing market conditions

food standards are good for middle class farmers we estimate the causal effect of food standards on vietnamese pangasius farmers wellbeing measured by per capita consumption expenditure we estimate both the average effects and the local average treatment effects on poorer and richer farmers by instrumental variable quantile regression our results indicate that large returns can be accrued from food standards but only for the upper middle class farmers i e those between the 50 and 85 quantiles of the expenditure distribution overall our result points to an exclusionary impact of standards for the poorest farmers while the richest do not apply standards because the added gain is too small

contract farming and smallholder incentives to produce high quality experimental evidence from the vietnamese dairy sector in emerging markets for high value food products in developing countries processing companies search for efficient ways to source raw material of high quality one widely embraced approach is contract farming but relatively little is known about the appropriate design of financial incentives in a small farm context we use the example of the vietnamese dairy sector to analyze the effectiveness of existing contracts between a processor and smallholder farmers in terms of incentivizing the production of high quality milk a framed field experiment is conducted to evaluate the impact of two incentive instruments a price penalty for low quality and a bonus for consistent high quality milk on farmers investment in quality improving inputs statistical analysis suggests that the penalty drives farmers into higher input use resulting in better output quality the bonus payment generates even higher quality milk we also find that input choice levels depend on farmers socio economic characteristics such as wealth while individual risk preferences seem to be less important implications for the design of contracts with smallholders are discussed

governance strategies and welfare effects vertical integration and contracts in the catfish sector in vietnam using an original dataset from the vietnamese catfish sector we study the impact of vertical coordination options on household welfare and the implications of different stages of vertical coordination for the success of the whole sector the welfare gain from contract farming and employment on processor owned estate farms is estimated using a maximum simulated likelihood estimator our results show positive welfare effects from participating in contract farming but not from employment on processor owned estate farms the results imply that contract farming presents opportunities for economic growth but additional effort is required to make the contracts more accessible to smallholders

access to capital and its impact on agrarian structure and productivity in kenya access to capital and its distribution across agents can profoundly shape the structure and performance of an agrarian market economy it is conceptually useful to distinguish between ex ante and ex post capital access ex ante capital access denotes the ability of agents to finance production costs e g labor and purchased inputs costs which must be paid ex ante that is prior to the actual realization of production ex post capital access that is access to capital after the realization of the production process is of particular importance as an insurance substitute in low income agrarian economies where contingency markets are imperfect buoyant ex post capital access would permit an individual to stabilize consumption year to year even as production fluctuates annually a number of theoretical models have ex

risk aversion and optimal reserve prices in first and second price auctions abstract we analyze the effects of buyer and seller risk aversion in first and second price auctions in the classic setting of symmetric and independent private values we show that the seller s optimal reserve price decreases in his own risk aversion and more so in the first price auction the reserve price also decreases in the buyers risk aversion in the first price auction thus greater risk aversion increases ex post efficiency in both auctions especially that of the first price auction at the interim stage the first price auction is preferred by all buyer types in a lower interval as well as by the seller

linking smallholders to markets determinants and impacts of farmer collective action in kenya summary this article investigates determinants and impacts of cooperative organization using the example of smallholder banana farmers in kenya farmer groups are inclusive of the poor although wealthier households are more likely to join employing propensity score matching we find positive income effects for active group members yet price advantages of collective marketing are small and high value market potentials have not yet been tapped beyond prices farmer groups function as important catalysts for innovation adoption through promoting efficient information flows we discuss the conditions under which collective action is useful and through what mechanisms the potential benefits emerge

agriculture for development new paradigm and options for success the role of agriculture as an instrument for industrialization had been rigorously conceptualized in the 1960s and 1970s under theclassicalparadigmofdevelopmenteconomics aftermanyimplementationfailuresunderimportsubstitutionindustrialization policies and protracted neglect of agriculture under the policies of the washington consensus that followed the debt crisis agriculture has gradually returned in the development agenda especially with the food crisis we argue in this article that a new paradigm has started to emerge as to how to use agriculture for development pursuing a broadened development agenda we explore the specifications of this paradigm and discuss conditions for successful implementation jel classifications b20 o13 q18

colonia land and housing market performance and the impact of lot title regularisation in texas this article analyses performance of the land market in several irregular settlements colonias outside rio grande city starr county texas specifically it explores the impact upon land prices of a major title regularisation initiative to clear property titles of very poor households undertaken by the community resources group crg receivership program at the behest of the texas state government between 1995 and 2002 land price data and trends are analysed using a major crg database of over 1400 price records and files complemented by a questionnaire survey of over 260 households applied by the research team as part of an evaluation of the crg program the data show that prices are relatively flat in real terms over time and that while there was a spike in prices during the early 1990s there does not appear to have been any significant increase since regularisation the data suggest that prices appear to be shaped more by socially determined criteria associated with the developers themselves

farmer participation in supermarket channels production technology and efficiency the case of vegetables in kenya supermarkets are gaining ground in agrifood systems of many developing countries while recent research has analyzed income effects in the small farm sector impacts on productivity and efficiency have hardly been studied we use a meta frontier approach and combine this with propensity score matching to estimate treatment effects among vegetable farmers in kenya participation in supermarket channels increases farm productivity in terms of meta technology ratios by 45 we also find positive and significant impacts on technical efficiency and scale efficiency supermarket expansion therefore presents opportunities for agricultural growth in the small farm sector which is crucial for poverty reduction in africa copyright 2012 oxford university press

distributional effects of agricultural cooperatives in china exclusion of smallholders and potential gains on participation abstract this paper examines the treatment effects of the agricultural cooperative and publicly funded extension services on individual household economy using data collected by the author from watermelon producing farm households in rural nanjing the cooperative addressed in this study restricts the participation of small scale farmers implying that selection into the program must be taken into consideration for an accurate assessment of the treatment effect the econometric analysis revealed that government extension services have a modest effect on farm income in contrast the treatment effect of the agricultural cooperative is robust and substantially large accounting for nearly 70 of the pre matching difference this suggests that the agricultural cooperative system is an important avenue for farmers to improve their economic status the treatment effect of the agricultural cooperative is highly heterogeneous the economic benefits arising from the cooperative are significant only for small scale farms we can argue that a coexistence of smallholder exclusion and the treatment effect in favor of small scale farms poses serious challenges to pro poor agricultural growth in china

reserve prices in auctions with entry when the seller is risk averse abstract we show that risk aversion raises the public reserve price r p above the seller s cost c but lowers the secret reserve price r s below the revenue maximizing reserve price r 0 further r p r s hence for a risk averse seller public and secret reserve prices are ordered c r p r s r 0

do private standards create exclusive supply chains new evidence from the peruvian asparagus export sector abstract developing countries are increasingly exporting fresh horticultural products to high income countries these exports increasingly have to comply with stringent public and private standards as well as other quality and safety issues there is an ongoing debate on the effect of private standards on the inclusion of small scale farmers in export supply chains with this paper we contribute to this debate by providing new evidence from the peruvian asparagus export sector and by addressing several important methodological shortcomings and gaps in the existing literature we describe export dynamics using a unique firm level dataset on 567 asparagus export firms from 1993 to 2011 and the evolution of certification to private standards using own survey data from a stratified random sample of 87 export firms we use an unbalanced panel of the surveyed companies on 19 years and several methods including fixed effects and gmm estimators to estimate the causal impact of certification to private standards on companies sourcing strategy we find that certification leads to vertical integration and significantly reduces the share of produce that is sourced from external producers with a larger effect for small scale producers when distinguishing between production and processing standards and between low level and high level standards we find that especially high level production standards have a negative impact on sourcing from small scale producers

measuring self help home improvements in texas colonias a ten year snapshot study this paper builds on earlier data presented in an urban studies paper for a major household survey in 2002 that evaluated the impact of title regularization intervention among low income homeowners in ten colonias in starr county texas in 2011 the research team returned to those low income households oversampling more than half of them in order to compare and analyse the extent and nature of housing improvement levels of overcrowding and access to home amenities and the methods of financing for home improvement and extension significant improvements and investments were observed totalling an average of almost us 9000 over ten years mostly financed out of income and savings although an increasing trend to seek loans from the formal market was observed correlation analysis explores how self help and self managed dwelling environments are adapted to family and household dynamics over the life course awareness of green housing applications and sustainability is discussed

impact of contract farming on income linking small farmers packers and supermarkets in china summary this study compares contract and non contract growers of apples and green onions in shandong province china in order to explore the constraints on participation and the impact of contract farming on income we find little evidence that firms prefer to work with larger farms though all farms in the area are quite small using a heckman selection correction model we find that contract farming raises income even after controlling for observable and unobservable household characteristics these results suggest that contract farming can help raise small farm income though questions remain regarding the number of farmers that can be brought into such schemes 2009 elsevier ltd all rights reserved

wholesale food markets with chinese characteristics abstract there has been a growing interest in the role of the chinese wholesale food markets in agricultural development and the food distribution system despite this attention very little is known about these institutions and the way that they operate in this paper some case studies are used to develop the profile of a number of important wholesale markets after an overview of the conceptual role of these markets and how they are perceived by chinese policy makers a survey is conducted of some of the leading markets in beijing nanjing guangzhou shenzhen and shanghai it is argued that gaining a better understanding of these markets will be an important component of analysing the broader food circulation system and food demand and consumption patterns in china

oil palm boom contract farming and rural economic development village level evidence from indonesia summary contracts between companies and local communities have been used in indonesia for over 20 years to involve smallholder farmers in the emerging palm oil industry impacts of these contracts have not been analyzed systematically here data from a village survey spanning a time period from 1992 to 2012 are used to evaluate effects on rural economic development panel regression models with village fixed effects show that contracts have significantly contributed to wealth accumulation contracts signed before 1999 were more beneficial than contracts signed afterward which is due to more public sector support and infrastructure investments during the earlier period contracts have contributed to decreasing inter village inequality not only because poorer villages were more likely to adopt a contract but also because they benefited more from contract adoption than richer ones the results suggest that well designed contracts can be important for smallholder farmers to benefit from the oil palm boom the village level approach has clear advantages to evaluate direct and indirect economic effects but it also has drawbacks in terms of analyzing environmental effects and issues of intra village inequality more research with various approaches is needed to better understand the multifaceted implications of oil palm contracts for sustainable rural development

marketing cooperative vs commission agent the turkish dilemma on the modern fresh fruit and vegetable market in turkey the wholesale markets law was enacted in 1995 to facilitate small scale growers access to the fresh produce market cooperatives and commission agents have thus become the main marketing structures available to small scale fresh produce growers to supply supermarkets and comply with their new requirements in this paper we question the advantages and disadvantages that confront small farmers with respect to those marketing structures to allow for market matching or quality upgrading drawing on ownership and transaction cost arguments we use an analytical framework to identify and compare the costs of these marketing organizations based on data collected through a large number of interviews with stakeholders we show that commission agents and credit cooperatives tend to be more efficient than traditional cooperatives as regards sales performance and decision costs however the lack of apparent competition between commission agents does not allow for sufficient provision of incentives for producers to invest in high quality production consequently credit cooperatives are the only structure progressively turning to strategies of quality upgrading and supermarket supply the flipside of such strategies is that they may lead to the marginalization of small scale farmers

modernizing wholesalers and guava farmers in mexico this article focuses on the rapid development of the modernizing wholesale channel with a study of guava traders and farmers in mexico this adds to a literature on modernization of food markets that has focused primarily on exports supermarkets and large processors and addressed less wholesale in general and rarely modernizing wholesale per se we find that participation in the modernizing wholesale channel relative to the traditional broker channel requires greater land regional and nonland assets as well as confers a premium controlling for quality and spurs employment in harvesting and handling locally

informal urban property markets and poverty alleviation a conceptual framework in the context of increasing urbanisation growth of informal settlements and the urbanisation of poverty this article suggests a conceptual framework to link urban informal property markets and p

limitations of contract farming as a pro poor strategy the case of maize outgrower schemes in upper west ghana summary contract farming cf arrangements have the potential to address market failures and improve technology adoption productivity and welfare in ghana government and donors use cf as a strategy for increasing adoption of new agricultural technologies and developing value chains yet to date there has not been a rigorous assessment of these cf schemes the focus in this paper is on different maize based cf schemes in the poorest and most remote region in ghana it assesses the profitability and potential impact of these cf schemes utilizing a unique plot level dataset that covers two periods of data and two maize plots scheme and non scheme per household and employing matching techniques and an instrumental variable approach to address selection bias and unobserved heterogeneity across farmers these are complemented by a community level survey in depth interviews with scheme operators and a series of key informant interviews results show that these schemes led to improved technology adoption and yield increases in addition a subset of maize farmers with high yield improvements due to cf participation have high profits maize cf schemes also enabled market coordination and consistent supply of quality maize to downstream industries however on average the impact of the cf schemes on profitability is negative even when input diversion is accounted for yield increases are not high enough to compensate for higher input requirements and the cost of capital under the schemes despite higher yields the costs to produce one metric tonne of maize under cf schemes are higher than on maize farms without cf schemes twice that of several countries in africa and more than seven times higher than that of major maize exporting countries the united states brazil and argentina sustainability of these cf schemes will largely depend on developing and promoting much improved varieties and technologies that boost yields in order to compensate for the high input and credit costs

some dynamic aspects of food standards food standards have existed since the beginning of trade and exchange but have increased and expanded in recent years affecting global and local value chains this has triggered vigorous debates on the impacts on trade and development standards may simultaneously enhance economic efficiency and redistribute rents complicating policy analysis and implying that the economics and the politics of standards are often hard to separate while substantial research has contributed important insights dynamic aspects of standards have not received much attention i present a framework to illustrate some dynamic economic and political aspects of standards in closed and open economies this framework integrates changes over time in preferences implementation costs and protectionist pressures as determinants of standards and suggests explanations for persistent differences in food standards across countries hysteresis in standards can persist due to protectionist motives even if the initial standards were not introduced for protectionist reasons i use some historical cases to document both the persistence and adjustment of standards over time and with international integration

contract farming smallholders and rural development in latin america the organization of agroprocessing firms and the scale of outgrower production abstract this paper demonstrates how contract farming functions as an economic institution and explores the causes of the observed variation in the scale of outgrower production in latin america we outline how market imperfections and transaction costs influence the decision of agroprocessing firms to contract out vertically integrate or use spot markets to obtain raw product the paper demonstrates how market conditions are likely to be associated with particular outgrower characteristics under contract farming an analysis of the mexican frozen vegetable industry illustrates determinants of successful and unsuccessful small scale contracting and suggests alternative policies to promote contract farming with smallholders

finding default understanding the drivers of default on contracts with farmers organizations under the world food programme purchase for progress pilot during the past two decades food assistance policy has shifted toward local or regional food purchases and away from purchases from donor countries while most local and regional procurement occurs through hard tendering processes open to large scale firms and farms there is growing interest in identifying how and whether to procure from smallholder farmer organizations to date little is known about the drivers of successful contracting with farmers organizations fos we utilize data from the united nations world food programme purchase for progress pilot in three east african countries to predict defaults on contracts we examine four possible explanations country contexts fo characteristics prior experience with contracts and contract modalities and their relationship to local spot market prices the single most important predictor of default is the increase in market prices between contract approval and delivery yet while increases in market prices are linked to increases in default this relationship is decreasing in contract size indicating search costs associated with breaking contracts our findings yield both generalizable and context specific insights about whether and when procuring from smallholder farmers can be successfully integrated into the food assistance toolkit this article is protected by copyright all rights reserved

from plantations to smallholder production the role of policy in the reorganization of the sri lankan tea sector summary the sri lankan tea sector has changed from one dominated by vertically integrated plantations to one where independent processors of black tea purchase their input green leaf tea from small independent growers this paper provides a unifying conceptual framework to characterize three major factors affecting the changes in vertical coordination arrangements transaction production and management costs regulation and government policy have altered these determinants of organizational change transaction costs have been reduced by state intervention into the price for green leaf which subsequently lowered the risk of processors re negotiating prices downward production costs which continue to be dominated by labor expenses due to the lack of technological developments for harvesting have increased more for plantations than independent producers due to union pressures

impacts of supermarkets on farm household nutrition in kenya summary many developing countries experience a food system transformation with a rapid growth of supermarkets we analyze impacts of supermarkets on farm household nutrition with survey data from kenya participation in supermarket channels is associated with significantly higher calorie vitamin a iron and zinc consumption we use simultaneous equation models to analyze impact pathways supermarket supplying households have higher incomes a higher share of land under vegetables and a higher likelihood of male control of revenues furthermore income and the share of land under vegetables have positive impacts while male control of revenues has negative impacts on dietary quality policy and further research implications are discussed

governance and trade in fresh vegetables the impact of uk supermarkets on the african horticulture industry production of fresh vegetables for export has grown rapidly in a number of countries in sub saharan africa over the last decade this trade brings producers and exporters based in africa together with importers and retailers in europe large retailers in europe play a decisive role in structuring the production and processing of fresh vegetables exported from africa the requirements they specify for cost quality delivery product variety innovation food safety and quality systems help top determine what types of producers and processors are able to gain access to the fresh vegetables chain and the activities they must carry out the control over the fresh vegetables trade exercised by uk supermarkets has clear consequences for inclusion and exclusion of producers and exporters of differing types and for the long term prospects for the fresh vegetables industry in the two major exporting countries studied kenya and zimbabwe

coffee value chains on the move evidence in ethiopia abstract important changes have happened to the upstream segment of the coffee sector in ethiopia africa s biggest in the last decade as illustrated by the increasing adoption of improved production harvest and post harvest practices upstream marketing has also improved and there have been large investments in processing capacity shown by the extended coverage of wet mills these improved practices are shown to be associated with positive impacts on coffee productivity and prices changes appear to be linked with multiple factors including local market reform greater presence of public extension agents high international prices and a push for certification by international buyers on the other hand a combination of production lack of improved seedlings weather and disease shocks as well as institutional issues saving constraints and lack of vertical integration and traceability have seemingly impeded more widespread uptake of improved practices and therefore better farm performance the study illustrates the significant complexity in obtaining transformation at the farm level in these settings

the role of input vouchers in modernizing the fresh fruit and vegetable market in turkey contractual arrangements between farmers and traders aiming at providing input credit in return for output selling have been widely studied in the literature on agricultural economics nonetheless there is one issue which is barely mentioned in the literature how to enforce the contract terms when traders offer credit in cash rather than input advances this article aims to describe an innovation in farming contracts used by fresh fruit and vegetable wholesalers in turkey which involves a kind of private voucher system drawing on original data collected from wholesalers a segment in the supply chain hardly covered in the literature we investigate the factors determining contract adoption using a two limit tobit model our results suggest that this private voucher system contributes to supply chain coordination and facilitates smallholder farmer participation in export and supermarket channels which are growing rapidly in this developing country resume d auteur

modern value chains and the organization of agrarian production empirical studies of agrarian production in developing countries often find that small farms possess a productivity advantage over larger farms eswaran and kotwal 1986 famously derive this inverse farm size productivity relationship from the structure of agrarian production the focal prediction of their model is that in otherwise equivalent economies a more egalitarian land distribution raises both output and producer welfare the traditional spot procurement system implicit in the eswaran and kotwal model however diverges fundamentally from modern contractual procurement practices we therefore develop a new model of agrarian production in order to determine whether the introduction of a modern value chain alters the welfare effects of land redistribution the inverse farm size productivity relationship persists in our model but we find that more egalitarian land distribution leads to nonmonotonic changes in producer welfare we also find that the introduction of a modern sector can harm the laboring classes

the future of small farms summary interest in agriculture for growth and poverty reduction reawakened in the early 2000s made all the keener by the sudden rise in cereals prices on world markets in 2007 08 but is it still possible to drive agricultural growth through small farms as happened in the green revolution whether small farms have a future was debated at a workshop held in wye united kingdom in june 2005 it concluded that small farm development is not just desirable for poverty reduction but also feasible even in changing circumstances and particularly those of more concentrated supply chains with more demanding buyers that said while much that needs to be done is straightforward such as provision of public goods fostering the institutional innovations to allow small farmers to deal with the emerging supply chains will require patient work tailored to specific circumstances the future of all smallholders may well not lie in farming but the measures to stimulate the rural nonfarm economy and provide jobs for those leaving farming a favorable rural investment climate provision of public goods institutional development are largely the same as those for agricultural development as well

social protection 2 0 exploring issues evidence and debates in a globalizing world abstract this paper reviews the growing literature on social protection while not new the concept evolved remarkably in recent years it is approached from a multitude of perspectives and intersects with broader bodies of literature particularly around public policy pro poor growth rights humanitarian strategies and aid effectiveness as well as feeding into specific programmatic issues e g conditionality targeting and transfer selection this blend of challenges and approaches has often made debates elusive and polarized the paper examines the evolution and definitions of social protection and unbundles critical policy institutional and implementation quandaries taken together these considerations shape a set of context specific models of social protection the paper s five core conclusions may help chart future directions for social protection research and practice

westernization of asian diets and the transformation of food systems implications for research and policy abstract rapid economic and income growth urbanization and globalization are leading to a dramatic shift of asian diets away from staples and increasingly towards livestock and dairy products vegetables and fruit and fats and oils while the diversification of diets away from the traditional dominance of rice with rising incomes is expected and observed current food consumption patterns are showing signs of convergence towards a western diet the diet transition is characterized by increased consumption of wheat temperate fruit and vegetables and high protein and energy dense food globalization and the consequent global interconnectedness of the urban middle class is the driving force behind the convergence of diets the rapid spread of global supermarket chains and fast food restaurants is reinforcing the above trends the growing demand for diet diversity cannot be met solely by the traditional food supply chain it requires the modernisation of the food retail sector and the vertical integration of the food supply chain in effect linking the consumers plate to the farmers plow as a consequence asian agriculture is on an irreversible path leading away from its traditional pre occupation with cereal crop production especially rice towards a production system that is becoming increasingly commercialized and diversified this paper describes the determinants and trends in the diversification and westernization of asian diets implications of the evolving demand trends for food supply and retail systems are presented the paper discusses the prospects for small farmer participation in the emerging food supply system with a particular emphasis on asian rice production systems finally the paper considers emerging challenges for food policy small holder welfare and agricultural research and development priorities

supermarkets wholesalers and tomato growers in guatemala the article shows the asset related determinants and the impacts of the participation of small farmers in supermarkets versus traditional market channels in guatemala compared to farmers selling only to the traditional market channels farmers selling to supermarket channels are larger but are in the upper tier of the small farmer category have more capital and are much more specialized in commercial horticulture in general and in tomatoes in particular while they have higher yields they also have higher input use including use of chemicals in fact they severely overuse pesticides and fungicides moreover these greater input expenditures mean that their profit rates are roughly similar to those of farmers in the traditional market channel supermarket channel farmers prefer the more demanding wholesale supermarket channel because it offers lower risks and lower transaction costs to market a variety of quality grades of tomatoes all year long in turn the supermarkets who do not buy direct but rather source from a few specialized dedicated wholesalers rely on this year round supply lower transaction costs and consistency of quality

post green revolution food systems and the triple burden of malnutrition developing country food systems have changed dramatically since the green revolution period at the same time malnutrition still represents a challenge and is now understood to encompass the three simultaneous dimensions of undernourishment micronutrient deficiencies and over nutrition manifest in overweight and obesity these changes in food systems and in the understanding of the global malnutrition challenge necessitate fresh thinking about food systems based strategies to reduce malnutrition this paper introduces a special section that offers such new perspectives we discuss trends with respect to indicators of the triple burden of malnutrition to understand the extent of global malnutrition challenges and then relate those to food systems transformation in developing countries

global value chains large scale farming and poverty long term effects in senegal this paper presents panel data evidence on the impact of expansion of global value chains and large scale export oriented farms in developing countries over almost a decade we estimate the income effects of wage employment on large scale farms in the horticultural export sector in senegal using data from two survey rounds covering a seven years period of rapid expansion of the sector we estimate average income effects as well as heterogeneous income effects using fixed effects and quantile fixed effects regressions we find that poverty and inequality reduced much faster in the research area than elsewhere in senegal employment in the horticultural export sector is associated with higher household income and the income effect is strongest for the poorest households expansion of the horticultural export sector in senegal has been particularly pro poor through creating employment that is accessible and creates substantial income gains for the poorest half of the rural population these pro poor employment effects contrast with insights in the literature on increased inequality from rural wage employment

a century long perspective on agricultural development this article strategically surveys the past century s literature on agricultural development we organize the discussion around three grand themes that reveal the richness of agricultural development as an intellectual endeavor first we explore the role of agriculture in the broader development process from a macroeconomic and political economy perspective we then examine the role of technological and institutional change in successful agricultural development finally the focus turns to a microeconomic perspective on agricultural household decision making and the problems of imperfect and missing markets asymmetric information and transactions costs that lead to widespread apparent inefficiency and disequilibrium

farmers welfare and changing food prices nonparametric evidence from rice in madagascar this paper uses nonparametric density estimation and kernel smoothing techniques to examine the instantaneous distributional implications of rice price changes in madagascar while many farmers do not participate in product markets as either buyers or sellers and net sales or marketable surplus are fairly small for many others the roughly one third of rice farmers who fall below the poverty line face significant negative first order welfare effects from increases in the mean or variance of rice prices conversely the first order gains from rice price increases are highly concentrated among the largest rice farmers and particular regions in madagascar

supermarkets and agricultural labor demand in kenya a gendered perspective abstract many developing countries are experiencing a rapid expansion of supermarkets new supermarket procurement systems could affect farming patterns and wider rural development while previous studies have analyzed farm productivity and income effects possible employment effects have received much less attention special supermarket requirements may entail intensified farm production and post harvest handling thus potentially increasing demand for hired labor this could also have important gender implications because female and male workers are often hired for distinct farm operations building on data from a recent survey of vegetable farmers in kenya a double hurdle model of hired labor use is developed and estimated farmer participation in supermarket channels increases the likelihood of hiring labor by 20 and demand for hired labor by 61 a gender disaggregation shows that positive employment effects are especially pronounced for female laborers who often belong to the most vulnerable population groups rural employment generation can be an important vehicle for poverty reduction

is late really better than never the farmer welfare effects of pineapple adoption in ghana export agriculture offers potentially high returns to smallholder farmers in developing countries but also carries substantial market risk in this paper we examine the intertemporal welfare impact of the timing of a farmer s entry into the export pineapple market in southern ghana we examine whether farmers who never cultivated pineapple are better or worse off than farmers who decided to adopt pineapple earlier or later relative to their peers and experienced a significant adverse market shock several years prior to our endline survey we use a two stage least squares model to estimate the causal effect of duration of pineapple farming on farmer welfare consistent with economic theory we find that earlier adoption of the new crop brings greater welfare gains than does later uptake but we find that the gains to later uptake of pineapple just before the market shock are small in magnitude just 0 1 standard deviations of a comprehensive asset index indicating that the gains to adoption may be precarious and depend on the context in particular on the severity of prospective market shocks

linking smallholder farmers to markets on extensive and intensive margins evidence from nicaragua abstract access to modern commercialization channels is key for smallholder farmers to move away from subsistence farming and overcome poverty however achieving that goal is challenging for smallholders given their lack of appropriate managerial practices production technology and infrastructure this paper examines the association between receiving trainings in two distinct entrepreneurial practices one direct at the individual and farmer association level and another indirect at the community level and commercialization in non local markets at the extensive and intensive margins we exploit a panel dataset of bean producers in nicaragua that participated in an ngo program implemented between 2007 and 2012 we find opposite results for the two market linkage activities especially on the intensive margin or volume of sales while reciving direct training on entrepreneurial practices ep is positively associated with commercialization training on municipality engagement me activities is negatively associated these correlation patterns are mainly observed among entrant farmers as opposed to those already participating in commercial markets prior to the program implementation we also find varying results for me activities by plot size and leadership position additional estimations show that training activities that are positively correlated with bean commercialization are not necessarily correlated with the commercialization of other crops and vice versa

an economic evaluation of spread on rwanda s rural population abstractsustainable partnerships to enhance rural enterprises and agricultural development spread was a programme to enhance the value chain for commodities in rwanda including coffee the implicit concept was that improving the value chain would increase the incomes for smallholders and hence reduce the poverty rate the results indicate that rwanda coffee prices increased relative to an index price for traded coffee with the implementation of spread in addition the results indicate that participation in the coffee market at this time was associated with higher household income and lower rates of poverty

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

following up on smallholder farmers and supermarkets in kenya in many developing countries supermarkets are expanding rapidly this affects farmers marketing options previous studies have analyzed welfare effects of smallholder participation in supermarket channels from a static perspective using cross section data we develop a conceptual framework and use panel data to better understand participation and impact dynamics the analysis focuses on vegetable producers in kenya participation in supermarket channels is associated with income gains however many farmers have dropped out of the supermarket channel due to various constraints the initial income gains cannot be sustained when returning to the traditional market organizational support may be needed to avoid widening income disparities

agrifood industry transformation and small farmers in developing countries summary this article introduces this special issue on the rapid transformation of the agrifood industry in developing countries and its effects on small farmers we review the literature from the late 1980s to the present and find evidence first of food processing then retail transformation and mixed evidence of impacts on small farmers both inclusion particularly with resource providing contracts and exclusion sometimes from scale constraint sometimes from inadequate non land assets the special issue papers contribute to the debate by confirming the mix of cases of inclusion and exclusion the cases are main in horticulture and dairy key hopes for smallholder development

supermarkets farm household income and poverty insights from kenya summary the expansion of supermarkets in developing countries may have important implications for poverty and rural development while previous studies have compared farm profits between participants and non participants in supermarket channels wider income effects have hardly been analyzed moreover most existing studies do not account for structural differences between the two groups we address these issues by using endogenous switching regression and building on a survey of vegetable farmers in kenya participation in supermarket channels is associated with a 48 gain in average household income which also contributes to poverty reduction to realize these benefits on a larger scale will require institutional support

responsiveness flexibility and market liberalization in china s agriculture been at most only limited gains from market liberalization if one were to take the findings of this admittedly scant literature seriously it would appear as if there is at most only a relatively small impact from market reforms in china we believe there are three possible but only one plausible explanations for the findings first if market liberalization actually contributes little to no growth or increases in output or incomes this would of course in part explain why economies that lead reform with market liberalization do not experience significant gains theory and the experiences of other economies in other settings however would argue against such an interpretation second it could be that china s agricultural market liberalization has just proceeded so slowly that it is still too early for output to have been positively affected by market liberalization however as seen above the record on the market expansion and the observations of many researchers would not support this view

private voluntary standards in the food system the perspective of major food retailers in oecd countries abstract the paper examines the main economic and institutional incentives which have driven major oecd food retailers in their use of private voluntary standards and discusses their growing role in shaping the agri food system it is based on interviews with quality and safety directors of major oecd retailers and a brief survey of retailers actual buyer practices though not all retailers are included these firms account for over 70 of retail food sales in oecd countries we find that the growing voice of civil society changing legal and institutional frameworks increased market concentration and buying power as well as their integration with financial markets has provided the setting for development of private standards while food safety and quality standards are seen as key to maintaining and improving reputation as well as against legal liabilities additional standards such as labour environmental and animal welfare are also gaining ground as strategies for customer loyalty and market shares the grass roots retailer move in the harmonization of food safety standards is seen as an initial step towards a global approach to managing the food system with harmonization of other standards likely in the future given their buyer power these developments can be viewed as a way of governing the food system and will be important for both oecd and non oecd food and agricultural sector evolution in the coming years

impact of third party contract enforcement in agricultural markets a field experiment in vietnam we study the effect of alleviating the information asymmetry regarding product quality that is widespread in contracts between agricultural producers and buyers in developing countries opportunistic buyers may underreport quality levels to farmers to reduce the price that they have to pay in response farmers may curb investment thereby negatively affecting farm productivity in an experiment we entitle randomly selected smallholder dairy farmers in vietnam who are contracted by a large company to independently verify milk testing results results indicate that treatment farmers use 12 more inputs and they also increase their output significantly some wider research and policy implications are discussed