Using ICT to Integrate Smallholder Farmers into Agricultural Value Chain

2010 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 23-37 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julius J. Okello ◽  
Edith Ofwona-Adera ◽  
Oliver L.E. Mbatia ◽  
Ruth M. Okello
Keyword(s):  
Value Chain ◽  
Smallholder Farmers ◽  
Integrated Approach ◽  
Value Chains ◽  
Market Failures ◽  
Organizational Failure ◽  
Information Market ◽  
Credit Insurance ◽  
Marketing Margins

This article examines an ICT-based intervention (known as the DrumNet project) that has succeeded in integrating smallholder-resource and poor farmers into a higher value agricultural chain. The article assesses the design of the project, and how it resolves the smallholder farmers’ idiosyncratic market failures and examines member-farmers’ marketing margins. The article finds that the design of the DrumNet project resolves smallholder farmers’ credit, insurance and information market failures and enables them to overcome organizational failure. The article concludes that successful ICT-based interventions for integrating farmers into higher value agricultural value chains require an integrated approach to tackling smallholder farmers’ constraints. The findings have implications for the design of future ICT-based interventions in agriculture.

Using ICT to Integrate Smallholder Farmers into Agricultural Value Chain

2013 ◽  
pp. 44-58 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julius Juma Okello ◽  
Edith Ofwona-Adera ◽  
Oliver L.E. Mbatia ◽  
Ruth M. Okello
Keyword(s):  
Value Chain ◽  
Smallholder Farmers ◽  
Integrated Approach ◽  
Value Chains ◽  
Market Failures ◽  
Organizational Failure ◽  
Information Market ◽  
Credit Insurance ◽  
Marketing Margins

This article examines an ICT-based intervention (known as the DrumNet project) that has succeeded in integrating smallholder-resource and poor farmers into a higher value agricultural chain. The article assesses the design of the project, and how it resolves the smallholder farmers’ idiosyncratic market failures and examines member-farmers’ marketing margins. The article finds that the design of the DrumNet project resolves smallholder farmers’ credit, insurance and information market failures and enables them to overcome organizational failure. The article concludes that successful ICT-based interventions for integrating farmers into higher value agricultural value chains require an integrated approach to tackling smallholder farmers’ constraints. The findings have implications for the design of future ICT-based interventions in agriculture.

scholarly journals Linking Household Food Security and Food Value Chains in North West Mt. Kenya

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (12) ◽  
pp. 4999
Author(s):  
Veronica Mwangi ◽  
Samuel Owuor ◽  
Boniface Kiteme ◽  
Markus Giger ◽  
Johanna Jacobi ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Food Security ◽  
Food Insecurity ◽  
Value Chain ◽  
Smallholder Farmers ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Household Food Security ◽  
Value Chains ◽  
North West ◽  
Household Food ◽  
Food Value

Smallholder farmers and pastoralists produce the largest proportion of food consumed in sub-Saharan Africa. However, they remain among the food insecure populations. This paper explores the food (in)security among smallholder farmers and pastoralists using a sample of 175 households in three agro-food value chains of wheat, dairy, and beef in the north-west Mt. Kenya region. The study seeks to answer if a farmer’s participation in a particular agro-food value chain determines his/her food security situation. We use the Household Food Insecurity Access Scale (HFIAS) and two Poisson regression models, parsimonious and full, to assess the household food security status and determinants of food security among the smallholder farmers and pastoralists. The results show that 61% of the households were either mildly, moderately, or severely food insecure. Households in the beef value chain experienced relatively higher incidences of food insecurity compared to households in the wheat and dairy value chains. The HFIAS scores revealed a wide gap between households with minimum and maximum score. Household size, income and income-related variables (ability to save and borrow to meet family needs), transport assets, membership in farmers’ associations, and household energy were significant in determining household food security, while access to credit and to extension services was not. Strategies that focus on boosting smallholder farmers’ incomes, building strong and resilient farmers associations to improve inclusive and equitable value chains have the potential to get smallholder farmers out of recurrent food insecurity.

Understanding reconfiguration pathways of agri-food value chains for smallholder farmers

2016 ◽  
Vol 118 (8) ◽  
pp. 1857-1882 ◽  
Author(s):  
Raffaele Dicecca ◽  
Stefano Pascucci ◽  
Francesco Contò
Keyword(s):  
Value Chain ◽  
Smallholder Farmers ◽  
Review Literature ◽  
Value Chains ◽  
Informal Networks ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Innovation Intermediaries ◽  
Lack Of Information ◽  
Intermediary Organizations ◽  
Knowledge Platform

Purpose – Smallholder farmers often deal with lack of information and knowledge, weak financial capacity and limited collaboration and network orientation. This is hampering their ability to adopt or co-develop innovation, and to participate in value chain exchanges. This calls for using intermediary organizations. The purpose of this paper is to understand how innovation intermediaries engage with smallholder farmers and provoke value chain reconfigurations. Design/methodology/approach – The authors systematically review literature to draw cases on intermediaries operating in the agri-food sector in several geographical and socio-economic contexts. The authors then adopt a theory building from cases approach to identify relationships between smallholder farmers and innovation intermediaries, and their effects in the reconfiguration of value chains. Findings – Consultants, knowledge transfer organizations (KTOs) and broker organizations (BOs) are the three typologies of intermediaries identified. While consultants facilitate change by modifying the way smallholders engage in transactions with their buyers and input providers, KTOs focus on farmers engagement in the value chain by stimulating the formation of knowledge platform or partnership. BOs operate in a similar way as compared to KTOs but mainly by forming and facilitating access to informal networks. Practical implications – The authors build a framework in which relationships between typologies of intermediary organizations and types of innovation processes are connected with changes at value chain level. Originality/value – The authors highlight how diverse forms of intermediations may stimulate not only smallholder farmers’ participation in innovation networks but also value chain reconfigurations.

Value chain approaches to development

2014 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 2-22 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katie D. Ricketts ◽  
Calum G. Turvey ◽  
Miguel I. Gómez
Keyword(s):  
Value Chain ◽  
Smallholder Farmers ◽  
Value Chains ◽  
Export Markets ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Risks And Benefits ◽  
Rainforest Alliance ◽  
Market Opportunities ◽  
Production Practices ◽  
Price Risks

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to look at the ever-popular, “value-chain approach” for linking smallholder farmers to high value export markets. Conventional wisdom says that value chains undertaken for development purposes redistribute risk and provide benefits and services to participants that are otherwise difficult or impossible to obtain. The authors take a farmer-centric approach and ask farmers participating in these higher value chains if they perceive greater, or different risks and compare results to their conventional counterparts. The authors also ask what benefits they associate with participation and if they believe they believe those benefits are exclusive to value chain participation. Design/methodology/approach – The authors collect data from growers in three different cocoa value chains in Ashanti, Ghana. These chains include one focussed on certified production practices (Rainforest Alliance), one that focussed on high-value product characteristics (Fine Flavor) and a conventional chain, which serves as counterfactual. Findings – The paper finds differences in perceptions of participation risks and benefits – particularly among price risks – that appear to filter based on value chain membership. However, for many risks, value chain participation seems to do little to redistribute potential production shocks. With some exceptions, growers report that many of the benefits they enjoy as a result of participation could feasibly be accessed by other sources. Research limitations/implications – The limitations of this paper are related to sample size. This was managed from a statistical perspective. Social implications – The authors explore how these results might impact the sustainability of the value chain approach and encourage donors and development agencies to be thoughtful and critical about measuring how farmers perceive new market opportunities. Originality/value – The authors believe that this is the first paper prepared to critically investigate the perceived benefits of value chains.

Negotiating the Value Chain: A Study of Surplus and Distribution in Indian Markets for Food

2020 ◽  
Vol 45 (2) ◽  
pp. 460-492 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amy J. Cohen
Keyword(s):  
Social Relationships ◽  
Value Creation ◽  
Value Chain ◽  
Smallholder Farmers ◽  
Economic Value ◽  
Value Chains ◽  
Global Value Chain ◽  
Small Farmers ◽  
Local Economies ◽  
Equitable Distribution

To enhance the welfare of smallholder farmers, development agencies increasingly promote “value chain agriculture” where farmers partner with more powerful entities, such as corporations and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), to create new sources of economic value. Via a qualitative study of how small farmers negotiate with the buyers of retail and agribusiness corporations in India, this article explores why the promise of value creation can appear so elusive on the ground. It makes two primary contributions. For global value chain scholars, it illustrates how studying value chains “below” the level of the firm illuminates complex ways in which new pathways for economic development are constrained by actually existing local economies—and how these local economies, rather than easily replaced, shape what counts as a source of value for small farmers. For negotiation scholars, it illustrates how, in some contexts, an equitable distribution of risk and social relationships may need to precede anything we call value creation.

Integrating structure, conduct and performance into value chain analysis

2014 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 21-30 ◽  
Author(s):  
H.S. de Figueirêdo Junior ◽  
M.P.M. Meuwissen ◽  
A.G.J.M. Oude Lansink
Keyword(s):  
Value Chain ◽  
Poverty Reduction ◽  
Local Development ◽  
Integrated Approach ◽  
Strategy Development ◽  
Value Chains ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Value Chain Analysis ◽  
Chain Analysis ◽  
And Performance

Value chain analysis has been adopted by several research and funding institutions for analysing local development opportunities. Development practitioners, however, are still looking for more solid grounds for value chain strategy development, especially since the expected outcomes of interventions, such as poverty reduction, have been unclear. This paper aims to extend the Structure-Conduct-Performance (SCP) framework to connect value chain strategies, such as product, market, technology and governance choices, to outcomes with respect to local development. The extended SCP framework is developed through a literature review and an analysis of structure, conduct and performance aspects and their interactions. In this extended value chain SCP framework, the unit of analysis is not a firm, but a portion of a value chain in a territory, a local netchain, competing against another netchain elsewhere. The proposed value chain SCP framework highlights categories of structure, conduct and performance for value chains and provides an integrated approach to explore possible interactions among those categories. The use of the value chain SCP framework will help practitioners to evaluate different policy interventions. The application of this framework to devise strategies for several value chains is expected in future research, as well as the inclusion of social and environmental conduct and performance categories.

scholarly journals Thinking beyond collateral in value chain lending: access to bank credit for smallholder Vietnamese bamboo and cinnamon farmers

2019 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 535-555
Author(s):  
Do Xuan Luan ◽  
Aaron J. Kingsbury
Keyword(s):  
Value Chain ◽  
Rural Areas ◽  
Smallholder Farmers ◽  
Value Chains ◽  
Heckman Model ◽  
Access To Credit ◽  
Stakeholder Partnerships ◽  
Multi Stakeholder ◽  
Lower Income Countries ◽  
Depth Interviews

Using case studies of the bamboo and cinnamon value chains in rural areas of northern Vietnam, this paper contributes to the existing literature by analyzing barriers and suggests conditions under which value chain lending would be an effective tool for improving smallholder farmers’ access to credit. A mixed method using both in-depth interviews with relevant stakeholders and a two-stage Heckman model is employed to explain the existing credit gap. Findings show that in both chains, bank decision-making on lending is typically limited to individual chain actors instead of considering the whole chain. Commercial banks predominately use conventional lending approaches heavily dependent on collateral which typically results in a shortage of credit available to the chain actors. Value chain lending is constrained by weak chain linkages and limited ownership of private bank accounts. Drawing from these cases in Vietnam, the article concludes by arguing that status quo value chain lending in lower-income countries merits considerable rethinking. The lending approaches of banks require innovation to ‘think beyond collateral’ in improving chain cohesion. Multi-stakeholder partnerships are important for successful value chain lending. In addition, farmer-based unions have the potential to address issues of information asymmetry in the credit market.

Value Chains

2019 ◽  
pp. 188-218
Author(s):  
Gordon Conway ◽  
Ousmane Badiane ◽  
Katrin Glatzel
Keyword(s):  
Value Chain ◽  
Smallholder Farmers ◽  
Food Product ◽  
Value Chains ◽  
Critical Question ◽  
Savings And Loans ◽  
Molecular Product ◽  
Sequence Of Events ◽  
African Agriculture ◽  
Effective Integration

This chapter studies the third pillar of sustainable intensification by focusing on the development of sustainable socioeconomic intensification. This encompasses the intensification of the relationships between farmers, which results in the development of innovative and sustainable institutions on the farm, in the community, and across regions and nations as a whole. Part of the response of rural people to the isolation they experience is to create associations, such as savings and loans associations and formal cooperatives. The critical question is how these institutions can be taken to scale. This chapter argues that the successful transformation of African agriculture lies in the effective integration of smallholder farmers into modernizing value chains. A food value chain describes the complicated process of transformation involving a sequence of events from the molecular product of one or more genes in crops or livestock, through intermediate stages of husbandry, harvesting, processing, marketing, and consumption, to the final molecular changes in the human who consumes the food product. Each component of the value chain, each structure or process has its distinctive characteristics, especially its own capacity to generate value.

scholarly journals Mango Postharvest Technologies: An Observational Study of the Yieldwise Initiative in Kenya

Agriculture ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (7) ◽  
pp. 623
Author(s):  
Hory Chikez ◽  
Dirk Maier ◽  
Steve Sonka
Keyword(s):  
Value Chain ◽  
Rockefeller Foundation ◽  
Smallholder Farmers ◽  
Fruit Fly ◽  
Statistical Test ◽  
Value Chains ◽  
Traditional Practices ◽  
Point Of Sale ◽  
Postharvest Loss ◽  
Food Value

Several studies have evaluated the effects of postharvest technologies on postharvest loss (PHL) incurred at a single stage of a food value chain. However, very few studies have assessed the effect of multiple technologies on PHL incurred at various stages of a food value chain. This study evaluated the effect of five technologies (harvesting tools, cold stores, plastic crates, fruit fly traps, and ground tarps) promoted by the Rockefeller Foundation Yieldwise Initiative (YWI) in Kenya on PHL incurred at three mango value chain stages (harvest, transportation, and point of sale). After extensive screening of the YWI data, the Kruskal–Wallis statistical test was used to compare each YWI promoted technology to smallholder farmers (SHF) traditional practices. Results indicated that plastic crates used to transport or store mangos and fruit fly traps used to attract and kill fruit flies were statistically significant (p < 0.05) in reducing PHL at the point of sale. Meanwhile, no statistical evidence of PHL reduction was observed from SHF using harvesting tools, cold stores, and ground tarps. Cold stores were the least adopted of the promoted technologies due to their high costs of implementation and utilization. While this study asserts that increased technology adoption is associated with PHL reduction, further research is needed to identify additional factors that favor technologies’ efficacy in reducing PHL in similar food value chains.

scholarly journals A VALUE FOR SMALLHOLDER FARMERS PARTICIPATING IN THE AGRICULTURAL VALUE CHAIN:

2020 ◽  
Vol 55 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mfusi Mjonono
Keyword(s):  
Conceptual Framework ◽  
Value Chain ◽  
Smallholder Farmers ◽  
Value Chains ◽  
Smallholder Farmer ◽  
Functional Value ◽  
Experiential Value ◽  
Improved Learning ◽  
Upgrading Strategies ◽  
And Control

Participation of smallholder farmers in the agricultural value chain is determined by their ability to capture value. There are different concepts of value that should be considered: those that drive an improvement in output value of a smallholder farmer, and those that pertain to smallholder farmers themselves, the functional (upgrading) and experiential value. Upgrading in the value chain takes three major areas of upgrading strategies: product, process and functions (Kaplinsky and Morris, 2008); the authors of this paper argue that these represent the functional value. The authors therefore claim that functional value refers to an improved or enhanced value in a more physical sense (e.g. higher prices per product sold). That leaves experiential value, which is intrinsically gained by the smallholder farmer, and is driven by improved learning and experience, confidence gained and control. Therefore, for a balanced analysis and understanding of the value for farmers participating in the value chain, the authors propose a conceptual framework which includes the elements of experiential value and functional value. The contribution of this work is therefore an expansion of the perceived value approach that may shed more light on the drivers of inclusion and exclusion of smallholder farmers in value chains. This paper begins by expanding the concept of value as it relates to smallholder farmers. Then, the authors propose a conceptual framework for participating in the value chain in an effort to understand the participation of smallholder farmers in agricultural value chains.

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