Pitfalls of External Institutional Facilitation of Farmer Organizations: Insights from Farmer Companies in Sri Lanka

Farmer companies (FCs) were a form of farmer-owned firms established in Sri Lanka during the mid-1990s. These have been facilitated by state institutions. Maximization of returns through commercial agriculture has been the main objective of FCs. However, no FCs were operating by the year 2010. This article explains that the institutional facilitation is a strong ingredient in the establishment of FCs in Sri Lanka. This article explainfs how the institutional and governance arrangements of FCs were influenced by the facilitating institutions during the institutional facilitation. It also suggests that institutional facilitation affected the performance of FCs. Six failed FCs were studied. Strategic facilitation was responsible for the performance and sustainability of FCs while operative facilitation provided the basis for direction and operations. Results indicate that poor performance and failure of FCs were due to institutional facilitation that has introduced weak institutional and governance arrangements. There was non-shareholder influence on the Boards of Directors; geographically restricted shareholding; democratic voting rights; and shareholder rights not linked to equity or patronage. Governance problems included voting by the raise of hand; managers not reporting to the Boards directly; shareholders did not elect all the directors. Institutional facilitation of FCs in Sri Lanka has been done by the state facilitating institutions. They have been excessively authoritative on their respective FCs. Therefore, changing the label from cooperatives to companies would not result in better performance. Some recommendations are that facilitating institutions empower FCs through capacity-building; participatory approach in facilitation; remove the geographical restriction in shareholding; install variable shareholding; build capacity of managerial staff; use secret ballots at voting, and practice proportional voting. Understanding the role of facilitating institutions and the dynamics of facilitation would be useful to promote farmer collectives in smallholder farmer dominant developing countries.

Agriculture in South Africa

South Africa is a semi-arid country with a weak resource base for agriculture which is also threatened by climate change and sporadic droughts. Through the adoption of modern technology, increased productivity growth and new export markets, South African commercial agriculture has shown dramatic growth over the last three decades. At the same time, the sector continues to be characterized by an extreme dualism between predominantly white commercial farmers and mainly black smallholder farmers, and many failed efforts to grow the sector in an inclusive and transformed manner. As a result, the country still has ‘two agricultures’. This chapter unpacks the structural characteristics of South African commercial agriculture based on a freighter-relation of the official statistics. This incomplete picture of the structural and geospatial dimensions of agriculture constrain any sensible policy design and support programmes to bring about a sustainable and transformed sector.

Politics, Power and Social Differentiation in African Agricultural Value Chains: The Effects of COVID-19

Since the structural adjustment policies of the 1980s, policymaking at a national and continental level has increasingly turned to agricultural commercialisation as the foundation for Africa’s long-term nutrition and food security. However, socio-economic inequalities, land tenure and food insecurity, as well as livelihood and income precarities remain widespread challenges. The effects of shocks, such as COVID-19, have overlaid emergent and entrenched patterns of social differentiation that shape access to resources, markets, and other opportunities for those involved in commercial agriculture. This paper considered the impacts of COVID-19 on value chains in Ethiopia, Ghana, Malawi, Nigeria, Tanzania, and Zimbabwe, to ask: 1) What can political settlements analyses tell us about agricultural value chains and responses to COVID-19 in the countries studied? 2) How are structures and power relations throughout the value chains and actors’ responses to COVID-19 related to social differentiation in the context of African agriculture?

Role of key performance indicators on agile transformation of performance management in research institutes towards innovative commercial agriculture

Purpose Key performance indicators (KPIs) are in use to determine how and the extent to which the business objectives of an organization are achieved. This paper aims to evaluate the contribution of a research institute in terms of KPIs to support its process of decision-making towards, etc., innovation, sustainability and improvement. Design/methodology/approach In light of this, a systemic review was conducted on a set of relevant scholarly studies to identify the trends which shed light on the possible critical success factors to be effectively used in research institutes in association with the development of commercial agriculture. It examines whether, and if so how KPIs that are highly associated with those critical success factors are disruptive in research culture in an institute with certain organization design to promote research on innovative commercial agriculture. Findings The study highlighted some important aspects of commercial agriculture that showed strong links with possible critical success factors that could be used to develop a possible KPI set for a research institute. The salient features in a model performance management system with such KPIs of a research institute having strategical contribution for commercial agriculture are further elaborated. Originality/value This manuscript is a conceptual piece that advocates research institutes geared towards commercial agriculture development to begin using KPIs as part of research culture to evaluate their success. The paper suggests that commercial agriculture – perhaps, especially in developing countries – faces many challenges and using KPIs could help diagnose when and why essential processes break down. This study shows possible avenues of KPI use in research institutes that have not been very well discussed or discussed meagerly that have high potential to be integrated into successful KPIs towards innovative commercial agriculture.

A latent growth curve modelling approach to seasonal and spatial dynamics of food security heterogeneities in rural Lake Naivasha Basin, Kenya

The increasing complexity of food insecurity, malnutrition, and chronic poverty faced by Sub-Saharan Africa warrants urgent categorisation and tracking of household food security along both temporal and spatial dimensions. This will help to effectively target, monitor and evaluate population-level programs and specific interventions aimed at addressing food insecurity. Traditional longitudinal analysis does not address the dynamics of inter- and intrahousehold heterogeneities within the seasonal and spatial context of household-level food security. This study is the first to overcome such limitations by adopting a multi-group piecewise latent growth curve model in the analysis of the food security situation in a statistically representative sample of 601 households involved in subsistence and cut-flower commercial agriculture, around Lake Naivasha. We considered food security as a latent concept, which manifests as food security outcomes in our primary longitudinal dataset from March 2018 to January 2019. Our analysis highlights the temporal and spatial dynamics of food security and advances new evidence on inter- and intrahousehold heterogeneities in food security across different seasons for the subsistence and commercial farming clusters. These heterogeneities were demonstrated primarily during the hunger season from March to June, and persisted in both the clusters and across months, albeit with different intensities. Moreover, our results indicate the importance of commercial agriculture in achieving food security in the hunger season. Our study suggests the need of a multidisciplinary approach to food security and the introduction of well-coordinated interventions for the development of subsistence and commercial agriculture considering the seasonal and cluster-level specificities.

Tackling the Context-Dependency of Microbial-Induced Resistance

Plant protection with beneficial microbes is considered to be a promising alternative to chemical control of pests and pathogens. Beneficial microbes can boost plant defences via induced systemic resistance (ISR), enhancing plant resistance against future biotic stresses. Although the use of ISR-inducing microbes in agriculture seems promising, the activation of ISR is context-dependent: it often occurs only under particular biotic and abiotic conditions, thus making its use unpredictable and hindering its application. Although major breakthroughs in research on mechanistic aspects of ISR have been reported, ISR research is mainly conducted under highly controlled conditions, differing from those in agricultural systems. This forms one of the bottlenecks for the development of applications based on ISR-inducing microbes in commercial agriculture. We propose an approach that explicitly incorporates context-dependent factors in ISR research to improve the predictability of ISR induction under environmentally variable conditions. Here, we highlight how abiotic and biotic factors influence plant–microbe interactions in the context of ISR. We also discuss the need to raise awareness in harnessing interdisciplinary efforts between researchers and stakeholders partaking in the development of applications involving ISR-inducing microbes for sustainable agriculture.

Characteristics of the Diploid, Triploid, and Tetraploid Versions of a Cannabigerol-Dominant F1 Hybrid Industrial Hemp Cultivar, Cannabis sativa ‘Stem Cell CBG’

Hemp (Cannabis sativa L.) has recently become an important crop due to the growing market demands for products containing cannabinoids. Unintended cross-pollination of C. sativa crops is one of the most important threats to cannabinoid production and has been shown to reduce cannabinoid yield. Ploidy manipulation has been used in other crops to improve agronomic traits and reduce fertility; however, little is known about the performance of C. sativa polyploids. In this study, colchicine was applied to two proprietary, inbred diploid C. sativa inbred lines, ‘TS1-3’ and ‘P163’, to produce the tetraploids ‘TS1-3 (4x)’ and ‘P163 (4x)’. The diploid, triploid, and tetraploid F1 hybrids from ‘TS1-3’ × ‘P163’, ‘TS1-3 (4x)’ × ‘P163’, and ‘TS1-3 (4x)’ × ‘P163 (4x)’ were produced to test their fertilities, crossing compatibilities, and yields. The results indicated a reduction in fertility in the triploids and the tetraploids, relative to their diploid counterparts. When triploids were used as females, seed yields were less than 2% compared to when diploids were used as females; thus, triploids were determined to be female infertile. The triploids resulting from the crosses made herein displayed increases in biomass and inflorescence weight compared to the diploids created from the same parents in a field setting. Statistical increases in cannabinoid concentrations were not observed. Lastly, asymmetric crossing compatibility was observed between the diploids and the tetraploids of the genotypes tested. The results demonstrate the potential benefits of triploid C. sativa cultivars in commercial agriculture.