Center for Effective Global Action

For many poor farmers in developing countries, vulnerability to risk is a dominant feature of their livelihoods. Households' desires to protect themselves against shocks is thought to affect their production and savings decisions. Farmers who are fearful of future loss of earnings may be reluctant to adopt technological innovations with a variable or unknown return. This paper examines the relationship between agricultural development, vulnerability to shocks, and the risk management practices of small farmers in developing countries. It finds that adoption of new agricultural inputs and practices is a combination of both rational and behavioral motives, with peer effects appearing more important through studies of social networks and reinforcement and diffusion effects.

Contract farming has expanded in Uganda due to the promotional efforts of various actors: private, public, and/or international aid agencies. While motives for promoting contract farming may vary by actor, it is argued in this study that contract farming is crucial in the commercialization of smallholder agriculture and hence, poverty reduction in Uganda. However, smallholder farmers in Uganda have reportedly experienced some contractual problems when dealing with large agribusiness firms, resulting in them giving up contract farming. Similarly, agribusinesses have also reportedly encountered some contractual problems when dealing with some smallholder farmers that could have led to the exclusion of the latter from contract farming. Therefore, the main objective of this study was to examine the role of contract farming in the commercialization of smallholder agriculture in Uganda by using sunflower, sorghum, and rice contract schemes as case studies. Specifically, the study sought to characterize the sorghum, sunflower, and rice contract schemes as well as identify benefits and problems associated with them. Primary data were collected by a combined use of survey and informal interview methods. A survey of both contracted and non contracted farmers was conducted in Soroti District (Sorghum), Apac District (Sunflower), and Bugiri District (Rice). Informal interviews were held with agribusiness firms (Nile Breweries Limited, Mukwano Industries, and Tilda (U) Limited), their agents, and support organizations. Data were then analyzed using descriptive statistics and non parametric tests (Chi-square and F-tests). While most of the findings from this study are general in nature, some of them are idiosyncratic to the case studies investigated. It was generally found contract farming contributed a great deal to the commercialization of smallholder agriculture in Uganda, especially in the sorghum (Epuripur) and sunflower sub-sectors. While agribusinesses obtained assured supply of raw materials for their processing needs, smallholder farmers on the other hand had access to critical inputs such as improved seeds and extension services, in addition to access to a guaranteed market for their produce. However, there were still some challenges in the organization and operation of the contract farming schemes. Thus, both agribusinesses and policy makers have separate roles to play in making sure contract farming is properly nurtured for the benefit of smallholder farmers in Uganda.

The high prevalence of risks in low income economies implies that people’s ability to manage uncertainty is critical for both productivity and their mere survival. This paper analyses seasonal changes in per capita consumption and saving behaviour of farm households in response to health and weather shocks. The notion that people save most of there transitory income, as postulated by the permanent income hypothesis, and precautionary saving motives are tested using a sample of 196 households examined over three consecutive cropping seasons in Central Kenya. The results show that, while people exhibit some level of prudence, the marginal propensity to save out of transitory income is about 33 percent — about a third of what the permanent income hypothesis postulates. This proportion saved is an indication of the extent of incompleteness of credit and insurance markets in the study area. This shows substantial scope for remedial public action in social protection programmes. Seasonality was found to impact on propensity to save with more stressful seasons adversely affecting both savings and consumption. There were differentiated propensities to smooth consumption between the rich and the poor, with the latter group exhibiting stronger precautionary motives. However, the wealth effect becomes insignificant as the seasons worsen pointing to a vulnerable asset base. Unlike weather uncertainty, consumption rise and savings decline in response to health stress associated with HIV/AIDS. The desire to smooth the health (asset) stock seems to outweigh the desire or ability to smooth future consumption through savings. The consequence is more volatile consumption for HIV/AIDS affected households.

The objective of this introduction is to put the May 2009 conference "on Agriculture for Development" in perspective of current and expected changes in the broad process of using agriculture for development in Sub-Saharan Africa. This is to help the conference achieve its two main purposes: assess the frontiers of research in economics applied to agricultural development and smallholder competitiveness; and establish research priorities for future efforts in that direction. It uses the WDR 2008 as a starting point for this task.

This paper examines the informational origin of the low adoption rates of modern agricultural technologies frequently observed in smallholder agriculture in Sub-Sahran Africa. The paper argues that a large part of these observed low adoption rates can be explained by a simple fact: The lack of awareness of the existence of the technology by a large proportion of the smallholder farming population. The paper analyzes the structure of the adoption gap resulting from this lack of awareness and presents a methodology for estimating that gap and truly informative adoption rates and their determinants. This methodology is then used to provide estimates of the New Rice for Africa (NERICA)

population potential adoption rates and gaps as well as estimates of the determinants of NERICA exposure and adoption in four West African Countries: Cote d’Ivoire, Guinea, Benin and Gambia.

The implied estimated adoption gaps of 21% in Cote-d’Ivoire, 41% in Guinea, 28% in Benin and 47% in Gambia suggest that there is potential for increasing NERICA adoption significantly in these four countries. The results of the analysis of the

determinants of NERICA adoption highlight the importance of Participatory Varietal Selection (PVS) trials and farmer access to extension services in promoting the adoption of NERICAs beyond their beneficial effects in making farmers aware of the existence of the varieties. The findings also points to some possible gender biases in the dissemination of NERICA varieties in Guinea.

The paper reports on a series of field experiments based on a non-standard common-pool resource model and carried out with communal farmers in southern Africa. We frame an experimental design used by Cardenas et al. (2008) in Thailand and Colombia according to the grazing situation in semi-arid regions. We analyse the efficiency of two simple, imperfectly enforced property-rights mechanisms that base on both, informal realworld arrangements practised in the communal areas as well as on the procedure pursued by the Namibian government, where mostly those farmers with big herd sizes get granted access to resettlement farms. Our results suggest that in the short run, the introduction of property rights increases the economic returns and has positive ecological effects, but that these effects diminish in the long-run if imperfectly enforced. It further seems that players’ propensity to co-operate is constant across the experiment: farmers who behave less co-operatively in an open access situation do so as well when they get granted exclusive property rights.

This article analyses the determinants of the discrete decision of a household on whether to participate in banana markets using the FIML bivariate probit method. The continuous decision on how much to sell or buy is analyzed by establishing the supply and demand functions while accounting for the selectivity bias.

Results indicate that buying and selling decisions are not statistically independent and the random disturbances in the buying and selling decisions are affected in opposite directions by random shocks. Transaction cost related factors such as geographical location of households, market information sources and travel time to the nearest urban centre do influence participation. Other factors such as labour availability, farming experience, gender of household head, off-farm income and the asset base of the household also affect the likelihood and intensity of participation.

Policies guiding central and local governments towards increased investment in rural infrastructure (i.e. feeder roads networks, trunk roads, telecommunication services and establishment of market places) can help reduce transaction costs and thereby improve participation of smallholder farmers in markets. Policies supporting group formation may lead to improving economies of scale and flow of information amongst farmers which may increase market participation.

To sell their surpluses of maize, the main staple in Benin, farmers may choose among three modes of transaction: they may sell under a contract with itinerant traders, or they may sell without a contract at the farmgate or on distant markets. It has been postulated that farmers may choose a profitable mode of transaction if they have good access to information on the prevailing market conditions. Using detailed farm household survey data from Benin, this paper applies the Nested Logit model to test this hypothesis. The results show that farmers are likely to opt for selling at the farmgate without a contract if they have good access to information. However, such a decision may not be related to access to information through the government supported 'Public Market Information System' but rather it is likely to be induced by access to information through farmers' own social networks.

The transition from subsistence to commercial agriculture, often referred to as the commercialization of agriculture, has long been considered an important part of the agrarian transformation of low income economies and a means of ensuring food security, enhanced nutrition, and enhanced incomes. However, in the face of imperfect markets and high transaction costs, smallholders are rarely able to exploit all the potential gains from commercialization. With the objective of better understanding smallholder participation in markets, the paper proceeds in Section 1 to examine the impact of early reforms on smallholder market participation. In Section 2, we characterize the dimensions of smallholder agriculture that constrain market participation. In Section 3, a conceptual framework for understanding market participation through the lens of market institutions is proposed, followed by an exposition to recent efforts to promote market development in Section 4 and an overview of participation through the market institution of a commodity exchange in Section 5, before proceeding to conclusions in Section 6.