Promoting the role of farmer‐based organizations for value chain integration: the tension between a program's targeting and an organization's investment strategy

We use new data on 500 Farmer‐Based Organizations (FBOs) in Ghana and regression analysis to reveal determinants of collective investments and the case of the Millennium Development Authority's (MiDA) agricultural program in Ghana to demonstrate that development programs offering hard incentives may be counterproductive in promoting collective action. We show that when a program sets criteria for participation and offers in‐cash and in‐kind support to selected FBOs, it may promote rent‐seeking and crowd out equity capital formation. This is so because FBOs may have formed for the sole purpose of benefitting from incentives offered by the program and thus lack an economic justification, which is an important condition for progression through the cooperative life cycle. Further, by setting stringent participation criteria, the program may end up selecting younger organizations while it is the more consolidated organizations that are able to connect to business development services (BDS) and engage in more offensive collective action.     

Exploring participation in a sustainable farming initiative with self-determination theory

Sustainable farming initiatives (SFIs), which aim to support farmers’ adoption of sustainable practices vary in the degree of farmer participation. In this study, we explored the influence of SFI design characteristics on farmer motivation to participate. Based on self-determination theory, we framed farmer participation by linking participants’ motives and motivational processes, participation context and participants’ perception of that context. Using a mixed-method investigation, we analysed Veldleeuwerik, a Dutch SFI with about 400 members. We observed four motive types, in order of importance: knowledge exchange, business opportunities, sustainability and social contact. By combining them with five types of motivational regulation, our research revealed that motives are directed by a diversity of underlying motivational processes, and that both are influenced by the participation context, or SFI design. Based on these results, we suggest that SFIs who wish to attract farmers who are not autonomously motivated for sustainability, need to rely on characteristics that meet either other motives than sustainability or other motivational processes than autonomous ones. To maintain participation, SFI characteristics should support autonomous motivational processes, by supporting the psychological basic needs of autonomy, competence and relatedness. The study illustrates how a socio-psychological perspective adds value to investigating SFI design characteristics for successful farmer participation.