Can contract farming increase farmers’ income and enhance adoption of food safety practices?

Can contract farming increase farmers’ income and enhance adoption of food safety practices?
Author: Kumar, Anjani
Publisher: Intl Food Policy Res Inst
Total Pages: 36
Release: 2016-04-20
Genre: Social Science
ISBN:

Growing inequality has become an important concern in many countries. One of the ways that inequality is perpetuated is through differential market access across regions. This research deals with one of the primary determinants of regional inequality manifested in terms of market access. Nepal is one country where hierarchical geography leads to regional inequality. Differential market access can cause as well as accentuate inequality among farmers. Coordination arrangements such as contract farming can improve outcomes for the farmers and integrators on the one hand, but on the other hand it can accentuate inequality if only some regions benefit from it. With this background, in this paper we study the case of contract farming for exports with farmers in remote hilly areas of Nepal. The prospect for contract farming in such areas with accessibility issues owing to underdeveloped markets and lack of amenities is ambiguous. On the one hand, contractors in these areas find it difficult to build links, particularly when final consumers have quality and safety requirements. On the other hand, remoteness can make the contracts more sustainable if the agroecology offers product-specific quality advantages and, more important, if there is a lack of side-selling opportunities. At the same time, concerns remain about buyers’ monopsonistic powers when remotely located small farmers do not have outside options. This study hence quantifies the benefits of contract farming on remotely located farmers’ income and compliance with food safety measures. Results show that contract farming is significantly more profitable (offering a 58 percent greater net income) than independent production, the main pathway being higher price realization, along with training on practices and provision of quality seeds.

Impact of Contract Farming on Income: Linking small farmers, Packers, and Supermarkets in China

Impact of Contract Farming on Income: Linking small farmers, Packers, and Supermarkets in China
Author: Sachiko Miyata, Nicholas Minot, and Dinghuan Hu
Publisher: Intl Food Policy Res Inst
Total Pages: 36
Release: 2009
Genre: Social Science
ISBN:

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.

Contract Farming for Inclusive Market Access

Contract Farming for Inclusive Market Access
Author: Carlos A. Da Silva
Publisher: Food & Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO)
Total Pages: 236
Release: 2013
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN:

This book aims to typify the extent to which contract farming is helping small farmers to access markets and meet increasingly stringent requirements, not only of "modern" food manufacturers, retailers, exporters and food service firms,by also in non-food sectors such as biofuels and forestry. It also seeks to clarify differences in the functionality of contracts depending on commodity, market, technology, public policies and country circumstances. Conceptual issues are discussed and a series of case study appraisals based on real world examples from developing regions are presented. The issuesraised by the case study authors and the key messages synthesized in the initial book chapter bring new insights and contributions to further enrich knowledge on contract farming as a tool for inclusive market access in development countries.

The distribution of power and household behavior

The distribution of power and household behavior
Author: Wouterse, Fleur Stephanie
Publisher: Intl Food Policy Res Inst
Total Pages: 28
Release: 2016-08-12
Genre: Political Science
ISBN:

Niger is a landlocked Sahelian country, two-thirds of which is in the Sahara desert. Although only one-eighth of the land considered arable, more than 90 percent of Niger’s labor force is employed in agriculture, which is predominantly subsistence oriented. Food security remains a major challenge in rural areas of Niger, and gender is a significant basis for the inequality among household members with respect to access to land. Access to land, which is a measure of the income-earning potential of an individual, is an important determinant of the distribution of bargaining power within the household. Because households may not act in a unitary manner when making decisions, the power of individuals within the household to exert their own preferences may determine welfare outcomes, such as spending on nutritious foods or healthcare. In this paper, we use new data for Niger and regression analyses to assess the importance of the intrahousehold distribution of power for the behavior of rural households. Our results reveal that men are significantly more empowered than women in rural households in Niger and that social protection programs such as water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) and food-for-training contribute significantly to the empowerment of women. Our findings also point to the validity of the collective approach to modeling household behavior, as the distribution of power was shown to affect household behavior. In particular, we found that an increase in power in favor of the adult female significantly increases expenditures on healthcare and reduces spending on vices (cigarettes and alcohol).

Transforming Agriculture in South Asia

Transforming Agriculture in South Asia
Author: Ashok K. Mishra
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 386
Release: 2020-12-29
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1000336433

Debates about public expenditure in the agricultural sector have reopened in many developing and emerging economies because of high budget deficits and changes in public opinion. As a result, agricultural policy in many of these countries is beginning to take a more market-oriented approach to agrarian problems, most notably through the introduction of contract farming. This book explores the policy issues around contract farming and its transformative potential and addresses the lack of empirical research on this topic by focusing on South Asia: principally India, Bangladesh and Nepal. The book first addresses the effects of contract farming (vertical coordination) on productivity, food security indicators (yield, consumption expenditures, prices), employment and input usage. Then it draws lessons from the South Asian case studies on the impact of institutional changes, like contract farming, on income and food security of smallholder households. The core of the book includes case study chapters on several commodities that are produced under contract farming, including vegetables and fisheries in Bangladesh, low-value crops in Nepal and coffee in India. Other chapters also explore contracts, storage, input usage and technical efficiency in these cases. This book serves as an essential guide to academics, researchers, students, legislative liaisons and think tank groups interested in agrarian issues, agricultural economics and agricultural policy in emerging economies and particularly in South Asia.

Adoption of food safety measures among Nepalese milk producers

Adoption of food safety measures among Nepalese milk producers
Author: Kumar, Anjani
Publisher: Intl Food Policy Res Inst
Total Pages: 52
Release: 2016-09-15
Genre: Political Science
ISBN:

Food safety is the most vital component of food security. One option to ensure food safety is through enhancing compliance at the farm level. This study investigates the status, estimates the cost, identifies the determinants, and assesses the impact of compliance with food safety measures in milk production in Nepal. The study is based on cross-section primary data collected at the farm level from six districts of Nepal. These districts are known for milk production and capture the geographical and institutional diversity of milk production in the country. The study shows that the status of compliance with food safety measures at the dairy farm level is not very encouraging. The intensity with which food safety practices are adopted shows wide inter- and intra-district variations. This intensity depicts a positive relationship to herd size. The additional cost of compliance with food milk safety measures reveals an inverse relationship with herd size. The factors associated with the adoption of food safety measures are caste, number of children and elderly people in a family, household labor size, herd size, access to information, inspection for conformity with the safety and quality standards in dairy farming, perception of households about food safety assistance provided by milk buyers, and market outlet types. We also provide evidence of the impact of food safety measures on farm-gate prices and farmers’ profitability.

Contract Farming: Theory And Practice

Contract Farming: Theory And Practice
Author: Erkan Rehber
Publisher: ICFAI Books
Total Pages: 183
Release: 2007-05-11
Genre: Agricultural contracts
ISBN: 8131406202

Nowadays, agricultural-food system has been experiencing major changes which are driven mainly by recent developments in consumer preferences and attitudes, technological improvements, food safety issues and related regulations. The advanced agro-food sec

Local Food Systems; Concepts, Impacts, and Issues

Local Food Systems; Concepts, Impacts, and Issues
Author: Steve Martinez
Publisher: DIANE Publishing
Total Pages: 87
Release: 2010-11
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1437933629

This comprehensive overview of local food systems explores alternative definitions of local food, estimates market size and reach, describes the characteristics of local consumers and producers, and examines early indications of the economic and health impacts of local food systems. Defining ¿local¿ based on marketing arrangements, such as farmers selling directly to consumers at regional farmers¿ markets or to schools, is well recognized. Statistics suggest that local food markets account for a small, but growing, share of U.S. agricultural production. For smaller farms, direct marketing to consumers accounts for a higher percentage of their sales than for larger farms. Charts and tables.

Linking smallholder farmers to commercial markets

Linking smallholder farmers to commercial markets
Author: Ebata, Ayako
Publisher: Intl Food Policy Res Inst
Total Pages: 32
Release: 2016-07-01
Genre: Political Science
ISBN:

Access to modern commercialization channels is key for smallholder farmers to be able 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 effect of receiving training in two different entrepreneurial practices designed to link farmers to commercial markets: one direct aimed at the individual and farmer-association level and another indirect focused at the community level. We exploit an extensive panel dataset of staple bean farmers in Nicaragua who participated in a program run by a nongovernmental organization between 2007–2012. We find that the two market-linkage training activities had opposite effects on the commercialization of beans, especially on the intensive margin or volume of sales. While receiving direct training on entrepreneurial practices is positively associated with sales in commercial markets, training on municipality engagement (ME) activities is negatively associated. The market-linkage activities mainly affected entrant farmers as opposed to those already participating in commercial markets. We further find varying effects of the ME activities by plot size and leadership position. Additional results show that training activities that appear to work for bean producers do not necessarily work for other crop producers, and vice versa.

Contract Farming in Developed and Developing Countries

Contract Farming in Developed and Developing Countries
Author: Keijiro Otsuka
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2016
Genre:
ISBN:

Contract farming (CF) has long been practiced but is becoming increasingly common in both developed and developing countries with the heightened interest of consumers in food safety and quality. Under CF, farmers and buyers make advance agreements on volume, quality, time of delivery, use of inputs, and price or pricing formula. This article critically reviews the literature on CF to assess how it contributes to improving production efficiency and income of farmers in general and of small-scale farmers in particular. Although our review focuses on literature in developing countries because of its predominance, we refer to literature in developed countries (primarily the United States) to gain a deeper understanding of the impacts of CF. We find that although CF contributes to the improvement of farmers' income by introducing new crops and production methods, there is room for strengthening its effects on poverty reduction through policy.