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.
Weather risk is a serious issue in the African small farm sector that will further increase due to climate change. Farmers typically react by using low amounts of agricultural inputs. Low input use can help to minimize financial loss in...
With the commercialization of agriculture, women are increasingly disadvantaged because of persistent gender disparities in access to productive resources. Farmer collective action that intends to improve smallholder access to markets and technology could potentially accelerate this trend. Here, we use...
Background
Smallholder farmers in developing countries are particularly vulnerable to climate shocks but often lack access to agricultural insurance. Weather index insurance (WII) could reduce some of the problems associated with traditional, indemnity-based insurance programs, but uptake has been lower...
Sustainable intensification of agriculture will have to build on various innovations, but synergies between different types of technologies are not yet sufficiently understood. We use representative data from small farms in Kenya and propensity score matching to compare effects of...
Classical innovation adoption models implicitly assume homogenous information flow across farmers, which is often not realistic. As a result, selection bias in adoption parameters may occur. We focus on tissue culture (TC) banana technology that was introduced in Kenya more...