Year Published
- 2008 (0)
- 2009 (1) Apply 2009 filter
- 2010 (2) Apply 2010 filter
- 2011 (0)
- 2012 (0)
- 2013 (0)
- 2014 (0)
- 2015 (0)
- 2016 (0)
- 2017 (0)
- 2018 (0)
- 2019 (0)
- 2020 (0)
- 2021 (0)
Research Topics
Populations
- Countries/Governments (2) Apply Countries/Governments filter
- Rural Populations (0)
- (-) Remove Smallholder Farmers filter Smallholder Farmers
- Women (9) Apply Women filter
Types of Research
- Data Analysis (0)
- Literature Review (2) Apply Literature Review filter
- Portfolio Review (0)
- Research Brief (1) Apply Research Brief filter
Geography
- East Africa Region and Selected Countries (3) Apply East Africa Region and Selected Countries filter
- Global (0)
- South Asia Region and Selected Countries (2) Apply South Asia Region and Selected Countries filter
- Southern Africa Region and Selected Countries (2) Apply Southern Africa Region and Selected Countries filter
- (-) Remove Sub-Saharan Africa filter Sub-Saharan Africa
- West Africa Region and Selected Countries (5) Apply West Africa Region and Selected Countries filter
Dataset
- ASTI (0)
- FAOSTAT (1) Apply FAOSTAT filter
- Farmer First (0)
- LSMS & LSMS-ISA (0)
- Other Datasets (1) Apply Other Datasets filter
Current search
- (-) Remove Political Economy & Governance filter Political Economy & Governance
- (-) Remove Sub-Saharan Africa filter Sub-Saharan Africa
- (-) Remove Labor & Time Use filter Labor & Time Use
- (-) Remove Education & Training filter Education & Training
- (-) Remove Smallholder Farmers filter Smallholder Farmers
- (-) Remove Poverty filter Poverty
Market-oriented agricultural production can be a mechanism to increase smallholder farmer welfare, rural market performance, and contribute to overall economic growth. Cash crop production can allow households to increase their income by producing output with higher returns to land and labor and using the income generated from sales to purchase goods for consumption. However, in the face of missing and underperforming markets, African smallholder households are often unable to produce efficiently or obtain staple foods reliably and cheaply. This literature review summarizes the available literature on the impact of smallholder participation in cash crop and export markets on household welfare and rural markets. The review focuses exclusively on evidence from Sub-Saharan Africa regarding top and emerging export crops, with the addition of tobacco and horticulture due to the volume of research relevant to smallholder welfare gains from the production of these crops. It includes theoretical frameworks, case studies, empirical evidence, and historical analysis from 42 primary empirical studies and 112 resources overall.
In recent years, product supply chains for agricultural goods have become increasingly globalized. As a result, greater numbers of smallholder farmers in South Asia (SA) and Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) participate in global supply chains, many of them through contract farming (CF). CF is an arrangement between a farmer and a processing or marketing firm for the production and supply of agricultural products, often at predetermined prices. This literature review finds empirical evidence that demonstrates that the economic and social benefits of CF for smallholder farmers are mixed. A number of studies suggest that CF may improve farmer productivity, reduce production risk and transaction costs, and increase farmer incomes. However, critics caution that CF may undermine farmers’ relative bargaining power and increase health, environmental, and financial risk through exposure to monopsonistic markets, weak contract environments, and unfamiliar agricultural technologies. There is consensus across the literature that CF has the best outcomes for farmers when farmers have more bargaining power to negotiate the terms of the contract. In reviewing the literature on CF, we find a number of challenges to comparing studies and evaluating outcomes across contracts. This literature review summarizes empirical findings and analyses regarding contract models and best practices to increase farmers’ bargaining power and decrease contract default.
EPAR’s Political Economy of Fertilizer Policy series provides a history of government intervention in the fertilizer markets of eight Sub-Saharan African countries: Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Nigeria, Senegal, and Tanzania. The briefs focus on details of present and past voucher programs, input subsidies, tariffs in the fertilizer sector, and the political context of these policies. The briefs illustrate these policies’ effect on key domestic crops and focus on the strengths and weaknesses of current market structure. Fertilizer policy in SSA has been extremely dynamic over the last fifty years, swinging from enormous levels of intervention in the 1960s and 70s to liberalization of markets of the 1980s and 1990s. More recently, intervention has become more moderate, focusing on “market smart” subsidies and support. This executive summary highlights key findings and common themes from the series.