Formal and informal contract farming in Mozambique: Socially embedded relations of agricultural intensification

This paper explores the role of contract farming arrangements in agricultural intensification in sub-Saharan Africa, combining secondary literature and original case material from Mozambique. The paper extends the scope of “contract farming” beyond the formal contracts between large companies and small-scale producers to include less formal credit agreements between farmers and traders. It argues that such informal contract arrangements are evidence of farmers' agency in “real markets.” In the studied cases, farmers use contract farming opportunities to intensify agricultural production by investing in irrigation and inputs. While informal contracts typically concern locally consumed crops, thus with more possibilities for side selling than formal contracts for export crops with company-controlled markets, informal contract compliance reflects closely knit social ties between the contracting parties. In both formal and informal contracts, purchasers tend to seek out producers who are already irrigating, thus obtaining gains from farmers' earlier investments. This also implies contract farming as a mechanism for accelerating social differentiation arising from unequal access to irrigation. The paper argues that the significance of informal contracts in the studied cases raises the possibility that informal contract farming by local traders plays a more important role in agrarian transformation in Africa than formal contract farming by large companies.     

Revisiting the determinants of futures contracts success: the role of market participants

The Chicago Mercantile Exchange introduced a futures contract for distillers’ dried grains (DDGs) in early 2010, but the market became inactive only four months after its inception. While many new futures contracts do not develop into high‐volume traders, interest from DDG cash market participants indicated that this contract could be successful. Prompted by the unexpected lack of trading activity in this new futures market, we empirically revisit the question of what factors contribute to a futures contract's success and extend the literature by investigating the roles of market participants and the significance of supporting futures markets. Estimation results indicate that the market participant type—hedger or speculator—affects futures contract trade volume. More importantly, we find that the viability of new futures contracts for commodities that are jointly produced with other commodities is impacted by hedgers’ trade volume of the related futures contract. These results provide important additions into the portfolio of indicators used by commodity exchanges to more cost‐effectively evaluate new futures contract products.     

Available Sheep Cheese Supply Chain: Governance System of Channels in the Badia of Jordan

Based on field research in the Badia of Jordan and the first of its kind, this study specifically addresses the supply chain, marketing trends available to Badia farmers, the governance system that impact farmers, and the challenges facing them. Available cheese chains included Safeway and Civic Consumer Corporation chains as inaccessible by Badia farmers and wholesalers and Tal Arrimah (TA) Factory chains as accessible by Badia farmers. The data was elicited from archives, semistructured interviews, PRA (Participatory Rapid Appraisal), and survey with 118 participants carried out during the months of March–June 2007. The new trends have driven new organizational and institutional changes that led to the rise and use of contracts. Contracts varied in their attributes of delivery, prices, risk management, and provision of services such as credit and technical assistance. For the TA Factory, contracts remained unwritten and informal and did not set substantial requirements for technology upgrading and investment. The study recommends initiating written contracts for the benefit of the farmers as well as that of produce quality and standards.     

Creating Value in the Supply Chain for Australian Farmed Barramundi: Whole of Chain Perspective

This article investigates 4 key areas of supply chain management to identify opportunities to create value for Australian farmed barramundi. These key areas are product attributes, material flow, information flow, and relationships. This exploratory study forms the first stage of a value chain mapping study. Based on data gathered from 13 in-depth interviews, 7 with farmers and 6 with wholesalers/retailers, a preliminary map of the value chain for Australian farmed barramundi was developed. From a producer perspective, 3 key issues emerged: lack of collaboration, inconsistency of product quality, and lack of knowledge of what consumers value. Although wholesalers/retailers identify product consistency as a key issue, they further identify product dumping and the growth of imports as areas of major concern. These findings laid the foundation for strategy development at both the individual and industry level. The insights from this case highlight the value of chain analyses as a diagnostic tool for strategy development.     

Strategic Role of Trade Credit in Chain Coordination for the Traditional Farm Business Enterprises in Punjab,India

Abstract

Rice being a staple cereal, government purchases paddy (unhusked rice) from the primary wholesale markets in the surplus agrarian Punjab State and milled rice is distributed through the public distribution system in rice deficit States. Commission agents (CAs) in the primary wholesale markets that operate on a fixed commission basis constitute a strategic link between farmers and the procurement agencies/millers. To ensure adequate supplies of paddy for their own businesses CAs advance trade credit to the client farmers who need a regular flow of credit (during both the seasons annually that is not always possible to raise from the formal sources) for the purchase of operational inputs, on farm investments and various consumption purposes. So mutual interdependences, hereditary characters of the business enterprises and close proximities have enabled the chain partners to build up close personal relationships in the repeat business transactions. Farmers sell paddy through the preferred CAs during the post-harvest period, and personal relationships play a pivotal role in chain coordination while captive relationships ensure timely payments. For advancing trade credit, CAs' preferred choices are the medium and large sized farmers due to lower risks while the small sized farmers are less preferred because of their weak asset positions and payment uncertainties that increase the operational costs of trade credit. CAs make amicable adjustments to the utmost so that farmers do not shift away from their preferred CAs. CAs do not share any market risk, however, when paddy payments from the government to farmers get delayed they at their personal levels meet the requirements for cash contingencies of the client farmers. Knowledge gained from this study provides managerial and policy insights on the supply chain management mechanisms for the supplies of an essential input and its timely recoveries.     

Rural credit and agricultural supply in Brazil

The objective of this study is to determine the financing impact of total expenditure on the use of agriculture inputs (fertilizers, labor, and pesticides), and the output of cotton, rice, beans, corn, soybean, and wheat in Brazil. We study the period 1976–2005. The analysis is based on duality applied to the production theory. The output supplies and conditioned input demands are estimated from a translog multi‐output, multi‐input restricted profit function, where the total production credit is used as proxy of the total expenditure. Farmer expectations with respect to crop prices are incorporated to the estimation based on the quasi‐rational expectation model. The output and input responses to the total expenditure are positive and statistically significant except for cotton, wheat, fertilizer, and pesticides. The short‐run output supply response to own prices is inelastic, except for wheat, which presents elastic response to its price. Acreage has a positive impact on the output supply and it is influenced by land productivity. The main conclusion is that farmers face budget restrictions to purchase inputs, and a government credit program might increase the agricultural supply.     

青岛市农村金融改革创新研究

农村金融是现代农村经济的核心,是推进城乡统筹发展,促进农业现代化的重要支撑。在总结青岛农村金融发展情况、梳理国内外先进经验及实践基础上,针对青岛市农村金融需求潜力未释放、有效供给不足、体系不完善、信用基础薄弱等四方面突出问题,提出了积极建立农村保险和担保体系,争取开展农村抵押融资业务试点,创新发展农业产业链金融,完善农村信用体系建设等创新性对策建议。     

Changes of the rice distribution and the functions of the food control system in Japan

Japan's Food Control System was established in 1942 during World War II in order to cope with the shortage of food. The system has been maintained in order to secure a stable supply of rice, a staple food and key crop in the country. The functions and roles of this system change gradually according to fluctuations in the rice market. Since the establishment of the ‘voluntary rice-marketing system’ in 1969, Japan's marketed rice has been classified into the following three types: (1) Government-marketed rice (GM rice): the government purchases from rice growers and sells to wholesalers. (2) Voluntarily marketed rice (VM rice): rice assemblers' organizations sell directly to wholesalers. (3) Freely marketed rice (FM rice) which is an illegal practice. Recent trends have witnessed decreased sales of GM rice and increases in the sales of VM and FM rice, thus resulting in the weakening of government control of the rice supply. The goods markets for VM rice instituted in 1990 introduced to a greater degree the market mechanism of price controls for rice. At the same time, the government's control of rice distribution was relaxed to allow new access to rice dealers and to promote free trade between sellers and buyers. Although the Food Control System in Japan has changed significantly, it will be retained since it protects the rice supply and paddy field agricultural system.     

Cooperatives, regulation and competition in Norwegian agriculture

This article analyses the efficiency of current market regulations and market structure in Norwegian agriculture. Based on their potential to coordinate farmers' supplies, large marketing cooperatives are assigned a market regulation role. However, market prices frequently tend to fall below target prices, spurring costly additional market regulations. This is not necessarily a result of inefficient coordination by the cooperative. Using a mixed market model, the study shows that over production may be explained by the competition between marketing cooperatives and investor-owned wholesalers (IOW), typically weakening the cooperatives' ability to coordinate market supply. This conclusion is robust over a variety of IOW contracts. However, to what extent competition is to blame, depends on the target price level and the contract structure of the IOW. Moreover, it is shown that current market interventions to remove excess supplies may induce further incentives to increase production.     

Market power and rents in global supply chains

Market power and competition policy in food supply chains has emerged as an important economic issue in economics, and a highly sensitive item on the policy agenda. Consolidation is taking place in the food industry, both in high‐income countries and in emerging economies, but the impact of concentration in global food chains on efficiency and rent distribution is more nuanced and complex than often claimed. We review the literature and extend it by developing a model which explicitly takes into account market imperfections and contract enforcement problems in supply chains. Increased competition benefits farms by improving contract conditions, but contract enforcement becomes more complicated.     

Asymmetry in beef,lamb and pork farm-retail price transmission in Australia

The hypothesis of asymmetry in price transmission within the Australian meat market is tested using monthly data for beef, lamb and pork prices at different market levels over the period 1971–1988. The results indicate that asymmetrical price response is a strategy used by beef and lamb retailers and wholesalers to adjust to changing input prices, but not by pork retailers and wholesalers. This difference is perhaps unexpected given the similarity in behaviours relating to price levelling in this market, the high cross-price elasticities of demand between these meats, and the relatively greater degree of concentration in the pork market.     

论林地产权转出的集中契约稳定性及治理

采用规范分析与演绎推导的方法从契约利益主体关系和集中契约内生属性两个层面厘清林地规模化转出的集中契约内生威胁,探究集中契约的稳定治理措施。研究表明:集中契约中的利益主体关系演变会打破铁三角的均衡关系,降低契约的有效性与稳定性;利益主体在履约过程中由于价值观变化、心理契约失衡和契约内容不够灵活与完备致使集中契约长期稳定存在一定威胁。为此,从契约利益主体间权利、义务和责任以及契约治理两个层面提出增强林地规模流转集中契约的稳定性对策,以巩固和深化林权改革,促进林地规模化经营与产业化发展。     

农业供应链金融的数字化转型:理论与中国案例

随着农村电商、物联网和数字金融的快速发展,我国农业供应链金融开始向数字化转型,本文对数字化农业供应链金融模式进行理论和案例分析。研究发现,相比于传统农业供应链金融,数字化农业供应链金融借助于电商平台、物联网、大数据和云计算等数字应用和技术,能够降低金融服务过程中的交易成本,构建农村数字化信用评价体系,优化风险控制策略,最终提高金融供给效率。目前数字化农业供应链金融已形成互联网企业驱动和数字化农业企业驱动两种模式,但是仍面临资金成本高、数字足迹缺乏和信息孤岛等问题,限制其作用的发挥。未来应加快对传统农业的数字化改造,推动农村电商的发展,支持和规范涉农互联网金融机构的发展,最终完善数字化农业供应链金融模式,为发展中国家的农业供应链金融贡献创新模式。     

Structure and Dynamics of Livestock Marketing in Rural Uganda: Constraints and Prospects for Research and Development

ABSTRACT

The projected global expansion in consumption of meat and other livestock products potentially offers sub-Saharan African small-holder farmers opportunities to escape from the poverty trap. A necessary condition for exploiting this potential is the establishment of marketing systems that provide farmers with reasonable incentives to participate in the market. In this study, the functioning of livestock markets in rural Uganda is analyzed based on a survey of 401 livestock keepers, complimented with focus group discussions with livestock traders and policy planners. The first part is dedicated to the empirical analysis of key organizational and institutional arrangements. Constraints along the marketing chain as well as potential institutional solutions are illuminated. The second part is dedicated to propositions of new areas where more work and new results are needed to improve the functioning of the livestock marketing chain. Empirical findings indicated the following institutional constraints: a poor market information system, lack of grades and standards, lack of trade finance, poor contract enforcement and dispute settlement, disorganized actors, high transaction risks, and poorly developed marketing infrastructure. The study recommends a structured approach to livestock marketing, market infrastructure development, and emphasis on arbitration systems as specific ways of improving the efficiency of livestock marketing in Uganda and other developing countries.     

30年来林业金融国内外研究前沿的演进历程——基于知识图谱可视化视角

利用Cite SpaceⅤ软件对1987—2016年间国内外林业金融的研究成果进行可视化分析,得到近30年来国内外林业金融研究前沿的非线性演进的研究主题,其分别为国际森林发展策略的转变研究与国内林业生产及贷款项目研究(20世纪90年代至20世纪末)、国际林业碳汇项目研究与国内林业投融资研究(21世纪初至21世纪10年代)以及国内围绕集体林权改革的金融问题研究(21世纪10年代至今)。最后,对近30年来林业金融研究前沿的演进机制进行总结梳理,并提出研究思考。     

The role of temperature for seasonal market integration: a case study of poultry in Iran*

Understanding market integration has greatly benefited from analysing and comparing variations in price transmissions. An important source of variation in agricultural markets is seasonal changes in production, consumption and transaction costs. A key factor driving seasonality in agricultural price is temperature, as supply and demand changes are triggered by seasonal temperature differences. In this paper, we study the seasonal variations in vertical price transmission focusing on the asymmetric price adjustment to analyse changes in the market interactions between the stages of the value chain. Our data reveal significant transitory effects of temperature on the price transmission process. Results of a panel threshold model suggest that the farm–wholesale price adjustments to deviations from the market equilibrium are more symmetric at higher temperatures. However, we do not find an effect of temperature on the wholesale–retail price relationship. Our findings can be rationalised with wholesalers making use of their market power to extend their margins in the upstream chain. Wholesaler market power is lower during warm periods, and price adjustment is more symmetric. Concerning the Iranian poultry value chain, our findings imply that temperature-related differences in market interactions should be considered in formulating policy interventions.     

Living under value chains: The new distributive contract and arguments about unequal bargaining power

In the 1980s and 1990s, during the high-water mark of Washington Consensus development, rural sociologists and geographers critical of contract farming described contract as a legal fiction—one that imagines formally equal and voluntary relations between large firms and small farmers and hence that functions purposefully to obscure unequal social relations. Today, however, development planners, who argue for contract farming as an integral part of value chain agriculture, describe unequal bargaining power as a problem for rural development to solve. Our article analyzes how proponents have domesticated what was once a radical critique of contract farming—a phenomenon that we suggest tells of value chain development more broadly. Via a qualitative case study of India, we describe how a range of actors—development planners, state officials, and farmers—now all make arguments about unequal bargaining power and yet hold disparate understandings of what bargaining inequalities mean and what reforms should therefore follow. More specifically, we show how and why common reform proposals—for contract regulation and farmer aggregation—remain constrained by the inequalities they would challenge and thus why farmers themselves speak different possibilities to the problem of unequal bargaining power.     

The Effects of Transaction Costs,Power and Risk on Contractual Arrangements: A Conceptual Framework for Quantitative Analysis

Increased reliance on commercial traders in liberalised agricultural markets poses questions about the nature of contractual relations between traders and farmers; about welfare, efficiency and equity characteristics of these relations; and about conditions necessary for traders to engage in these markets. A new institutional economics analysis seeks to understand the institutions that affect transaction costs and risks for each party, and power relations between them. Transaction cost analysis has not, however, developed a unifying conceptual or quantitative framework to integrate these issues. This paper develops a methodology for modelling negotiated choice of contractual arrangements in buyer/seller relationships, taking account of the socioeconomic characteristics of each party, economic and technical characteristics of the commodity, and the institutional environment. The model is setup as a non‐linear programming problem. The approach provides a framework for the application of transaction cost economics to quantitative empirical study of markets, to individual firms' supply chain decisions, and to the analysis of policy interventions in markets.     

Supermarkets, wholesalers, and tomato growers in Guatemala

The article shows the asset‐related determinants and the impacts of the participation of small farmers in supermarkets versus traditional market channels in Guatemala. Compared to farmers selling only to the traditional market channels, farmers selling to supermarket channels are larger (but are in the upper tier of the “small farmer” category), have more capital, and are much more specialized in commercial horticulture in general and in tomatoes in particular. While they have higher yields, they also have higher input use, including use of chemicals. In fact, they severely overuse pesticides and fungicides. Moreover, these greater input expenditures mean that their profit rates are roughly similar to those of farmers in the traditional market channel. Supermarket‐channel farmers prefer the more demanding wholesale‐supermarket channel because it offers lower risks and lower transaction costs to market, a variety of quality grades of tomatoes, all year long. In turn, the supermarkets, who do not buy direct but rather source from a few specialized‐dedicated wholesalers, rely on this year‐round supply, lower transaction costs, and consistency of quality.     

村级发展互助资金的目标瞄准、还款机制及供给成本——以四川省小金县四个样本村为例

本文以四川省小金县四个样本村为案例,从目标瞄准、还款机制及供给成本三个方面考察村级发展互助资金的实施情况。研究发现,四个村级发展互助资金未能瞄准当地贫困群体,其原因是贫困群体缺乏生产性贷款需求;通过将联保机制与贷款用途、贷款限额、未来贷款机会及国家其他补助"捆绑"起来,村级发展互助资金建立起了有效的还款机制,并采用"轮"的办法保证了信贷资金分配的公平;从利率与管理支出来看村级发展互助资金是一种成本较低的农村金融供给模式。