Supermarkets and high-value exports are currently gaining ground in the agri-food systems of many developing countries. While recent research has analyzed income effects in the small farm sector, impacts on farming efficiency have hardly been studied. Using a survey of Kenyan vegetable growers and a stochastic frontier approach, we show that participation in supermarket channels increases mean technical efficiency by 19%. This gain is bigger at lower levels of efficiency, suggesting the potential for positive income distribution effects.
The nature of the issues around which Agricultural Research for Development (ARD) partnerships are formed requires a different way of conceptualizing and thinking to that commonly found in many agricultural professionals. This brief clarifies the components of a system of interest to an ARD partnership.
Contract farming has gained in importance in many developing countries. Previous studies analysed effects of contracts on smallholder farmers’ welfare, yet mostlywithout considering that different types of contractual relationships exist. Here, we examine associations between contract farming and farm household income in the oilpalm sector of Ghana, explicitly differentiating between two types of contracts,namely simple marketing contracts and more comprehensive resource-providing contracts.
Inclusion is a key issue for Agricultural Research for Development (ARD). Development goals in and of themselves call for better livelihoods and opportunities for the less privileged actors working in agriculture. They also call for greater equity and balanced representation of the population at an institutional level. This brief focuses on how ARD processes can more sensitively address gender relations and youth issues. Women and young people have distinctive needs and interests which can be less visible within broader “Producer Organizations”, for example.
This brief illustrates the different forms of knowledge, and the ways to create and manage it.
This paper presents the common framework on CD for AIS developed by TAP and points to the relevance of meta-learning and the importance of “functional capacities”, if higher education institutions and their graduates are to become active players in the agricultural innovation system. The Framework was developed through an inclusive, participatory and multi-stakeholders approach with contributions by TAP Partners, including FARA and the Global Conference on Higher Education and Research in Agriculture.
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.
The use of mobile phones has increased rapidly in many developing countries, including in rural areas. Besides reducing the costs of communication and improving access to information, mobile phones are an enabling technology for other innovations. One important example are mobile phone based money transfers, which could be very relevant for the rural poor, who are often underserved by the formal banking system. We analyze impacts of mobile money technology on the welfare of smallholder farm households in Kenya.
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 than 10 years ago. Up till now, adoption rates have remained relatively low.
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 survey data of small-scale banana producers in Kenya to investigate the gender implications of recently established farmer groups. Traditionally, banana has been a women’s crop in Kenya. Our results confirm that the groups contribute to increasing male control over banana.