Potatoes,Petty Commodity Producers and Livelihoods: Contract farming and agrarian change in Maharashtra,India

This paper explores the implications of contract farming for patterns of agrarian change in India. The paper draws on a detailed analysis of primary qualitative data from a case study of potato contract farming in the state of Maharashtra. It argues that debates on contract farming are often ideological in nature, leading to overly simplified narratives of “win–win” or “win–lose.” Instead, by combining the strengths of agrarian political economy and rural livelihood analysis, the paper offers a concrete exploration of the intersections between contract farming, livelihoods, and agrarian change. It finds that contract farming activities in the case study villages are focused on a group of petty commodity producers. However, rather than sparking dynamic new processes of accumulation among contract farmers or leading to new forms of exploitation, the paper argues that contract farming is contributing to processes of agrarian change “already under way.” These processes are intimately connected to livelihood diversification and the struggles of new classes of fragmented labour.     

The role of input vouchers in modernizing the fresh fruit and vegetable market in Turkey

Contractual arrangements between farmers and traders aiming at providing input/credit in return for output selling have been widely studied in the literature on agricultural economics. Nonetheless, there is one issue, which is barely mentioned in the literature: how to enforce the contract terms when traders offer credit in cash rather than input advances? This article aims to describe an innovation in farming contracts, used by fresh fruit and vegetable wholesalers in Turkey, which involves a kind of private voucher system. Drawing on original data collected from wholesalers—a segment in the supply chain hardly covered in the literature—we investigate the factors determining contract adoption using a two‐limit Tobit model. Our results suggest that this private voucher system contributes to supply chain coordination and facilitates smallholder farmer participation in export and supermarket channels, which are growing rapidly in this developing country.     

Cashing in or driving development? Cross-border traders and maize contract farming in northeast Laos

Contract farming is receiving renewed attention in research and policy in the Mekong region of Southeast Asia, as countries continue to undergo varied agrarian transitions and agri-food production has become increasingly regionalized. In northeast Laos, previously isolated upland communities have experienced rapid transformations resulting from contract production of hybrid maize, mainly for industrial feed processing and livestock in Vietnam. Based on extensive qualitative fieldwork in the Lao-Vietnamese borderlands, this article explores the quasi-“developmental” functions assumed by cross-border traders, in the context of unfulfilled rural policy objectives, in which these “micro-investors” provide informal extension and infrastructure to enable agricultural commercialization. The article examines the extent to which this dynamic is adequately captured by notions of patronage, or whether subtle mutual dependencies are at work, as livelihoods are rebalanced between subsistence and commodity crops in remote border landscapes.     

What kind of labour regime is contract farming? Contracting and sharecropping in Java compared

This article compares contract farming with share tenancy, another labour regime in which smallholder farmers are bound by contract to deliver produce to another, usually more powerful party. Based on research in the Javanese village of Kaliloro, we explore contracting and sharecropping as labour regimes, each with their own specific mechanisms of surplus transfer from producers to non-producers. The cases compared are sharecropping of irrigated rice, contract farming of watermelon, and contract farming of poultry. There are important differences in how labour inputs are organized, how decisions are made, how costs are divided between landowner/contractor and farmer, and in the mechanisms of surplus transfer between the contracting parties. Exploring these differences allows us to understand and compare the role of the two labour regimes in the penetration of capital into the rural economy. Neither contract farming nor share tenancy are in themselves “win-win” or “win-lose” relationships, good or bad for small-scale cultivators. The actual balance of burdens and benefits—often contravening the provisions of written contracts or state regulation—is determined by power relations between the contracting parties.     

Determinants of millet diversity at the household-farm and village-community levels in the drylands of India: the role of local seed systems

This research characterizes the biological diversity of millet crops in the semiarid regions of India at the household and village‐community ( panchayat) scales of analysis, placing that evidence in the context of local seed systems. A set of seed system parameters that span formal and informal exchange and can be measured empirically are proposed. The analysis is based on data collected through sample surveys of farmers and traders in selected sites of Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh, combined with cultivar taxonomies developed with geneticists and applied to seed samples. Findings demonstrate that millet crop diversity levels at both scales of analysis are significantly influenced by seed system parameters, factors which related studies have omitted. In particular, the presence of active local (formal and informal) seed markets enhances millet richness among and within farming communities. Crop improvement strategies oriented toward local seed markets could provide important benefits and incentives to farm households living in these marginal environments. There is a need, however, for an enhanced theoretical understanding of local seed markets in analyzing crop variety choices and the diversity of materials grown in less favored environments.     

The complexity of exchange: Wheat markets,petty‐commodity producers and the emergence of commercial capital in colonial Punjab

This paper questions the orthodox Marxist view of merchant capital as “unproductive,” by highlighting the importance of traders in subsuming the countryside to the logic of capital. However, it also argues that in order to properly understand the role played by traders in agrarian change, critical Marxist scholarship on merchant capital needs to recognize the complex marketing systems in which traders and farmers operate. These markets have their own internal relations, organizational and institutional logic which in turn is tied to the specificity of the commodity. Using wheat markets in colonial Punjab as a case study, it then utilizes the framework of complex marketing systems to highlight the range of firms and farms that operated in these markets; the importance of personal relations and informal institutions of family, caste, and religion for establishing trust; and the class stratified nature of market participants. It was from within these informally organized markets that commercial capital first emerged in colonial Punjab. By creatively combining the concept of commercial capital with markets as complex systems, it hopes to provide a richer framework for the study of agrarian change in diverse contexts.     

Land Tenure,Tenure Security and Farm Efficiency: Panel Evidence from the Philippines

This article tests the relationships among formalised property rights, land tenure contracts and productive efficiency in farming. Using four rounds of panel data from 230 rice farms in the Philippines, we measure the effects of land tenure arrangements on farm efficiency using a stochastic production frontier model. We test for the allocative efficiency of observed land rental markets. We also test how land tenure security affects farmers' investment decisions. Results suggest that, despite the presence of formalised titles, the rental market remains inefficient at allocating land. In contrast, the unformalised tenure contracts used by farmers appear to provide tenure security.     

农户环境友好型农业技术选择行为及异质性基于离散选择实验的研究

目的 中国是世界上最大的化肥和农药使用国,农业绿色发展面临严峻挑战,这与缺少国家层面和农田管理层面为农户专门设计的环境友好型技术及配套激励政策不无关系。方法 文章利用离散选择实验（Discrete choice experiment,DCE）,以环境友好型农业技术（Agri-environmental technologies,AETs）及配套政策为基础设计农业环境政策方案（Agri-environmental schemes,AES）。用混合Logit模型（Mixed Logit model,MXL）来揭示农户在假想的AES情景下对AETs的选择行为及影响因素,证实农户偏好异质性的存在。后续条件Logit模型（Conditional Logit model,CLM）引入交互变量进一步揭示农户的偏好异质性来源。结果 研究表明补偿额度及农户社会经济变量是影响其参与AES的主要因素,且相对于退出保持现有耕种方式不变农户更偏好于实施AES。该研究还证实了农户对AETs选择偏好存在异质性,因此灵活的政策设计是AES顺利实施的重要保障。结论 鉴于对农户选择偏好及异质性的充分了解,政策制定者可以科学地制定和微调农业环境政策,设计AES以最大限度地减少各类农户反对意见,吸引绝大多数农户采纳AETs实践,提高项目参与率。     

Contract farming,contract design and smallholder livelihoods*

Contract farming has gained in importance in many developing countries. Previous studies analysed effects of contracts on smallholder farmers’ welfare, yet mostly without considering that different types of contractual relationships exist. Here, we examine associations between contract farming and farm household income in the oil palm sector of Ghana, explicitly differentiating between two types of contracts, namely simple marketing contracts and more comprehensive resource-providing contracts. Moreover, we look at different income sources to better understand how both contracts are linked to farmers’ livelihood strategies. We use cross-sectional survey data and regression models. Issues of endogeneity are addressed through measuring farmers' willingness-to-participate in contracts and using this indicator as an additional covariate. Farmers with both types of contracts have significantly higher household incomes than farmers without a contract, yet with notable differences in terms of the income sources. Farmers with a marketing contract allocate more household labour to off-farm activities and thus have higher off-farm income. In contrast, farmers with a resource-providing contract have larger oil palm plantations and thus higher farm incomes. The findings suggest that the two contract types are associated with different livelihood strategies and that disaggregated analysis of different income sources is important to better understand possible underlying mechanisms.     

The value components of contract farming in contemporary capitalism

Contract farming (CF) has generally been understood as, essentially, a market institution—by both (approving) “mainstream” and (critical) “radical” perspectives. Analyses of relations of production have, meanwhile, tended towards a problematic “peasantist” frame, where contracts undermine farmer “autonomy” in processes of “flexible” corporate agro‐industrial restructuring. This paper argues that a materialist analysis of CF from within capital–labour relations offers a stronger conceptual foundation for re‐synthesizing questions of market‐power. It first argues that radical notions of “peasant subsumation” conceptually mirror Marx's “formal subsumption of capital” but underplay dynamics of “real subsumption” accompanying capitalism's wider development. Drawing on the “petty commodity production” concept, it then argues that CF's “flexibility” rests in its differential content. CF's fungibility to contradictory movements of “integration” and “dispersion” enables it to emphasize different methods of surplus appropriation under shifting conditions; each corresponding to a different dominant social tendency. On the one hand, conditions of market expansion inspire integration for relative surplus appropriation through raised productivity, and CF tends to act as a “tool of proletarianization” in the wider centralization of capital. On the other, conditions of contraction motivate the dispersal of unvalorized capital, prompting efforts to raise absolute surplus appropriation, and CF tends to act as a “tool of differentiation” to concentrate agricultural capital.     

Choice of Coordination Mechanism in the Kenyan Fresh Milk Supply Chain

This paper examines the nature and determinants of coordination mechanisms used in the Kenyan fresh milk supply chains, using recent survey data of market participants from Nakuru and Nyandarua districts in Kenya. Three main contractual arrangements are observed in the fresh milk supply chain. These include spot markets, verbal contracts and written contracts. The empirical results indicate that though written contracts are sparingly used in the milk transactions, milk producers are more likely to adopt such contracts compared to traders. The results also show that location of producer, source of market information, distance to markets, travel time to buyers or suppliers, gender of operator, and presence or absence of enforceable contracts significantly influence the type of coordination mechanism used in both producer–buyer and retailer–seller transactions and travel time to milk suppliers.     

Peasant agency in Ghana's oil palm sector: The impact of multiple markets on food sovereignty

This paper contributes to the debate on peasant differentiation and market integration in the food sovereignty literature by examining the smallholder‐oriented oil palm sector in Ghana's eastern region. Against the background of loosening entry barriers in global value chains, and through an analysis of farmers' different positions in palm oil's multiple markets, we witness peasant‐like patterning of production and strategic market participation among well‐situated non‐contract farmers. We propose that such interface settings where commodity relations are present, but do not penetrate fully offer valuable entry points for revisiting the role of global markets in peasant reproduction in the Global South. We consequently argue the need to replace the idealized category of “peasant” with an analytical category that can recognize social differentiation and reproduction through partial engagement with commodity markets.     

农业机械化水平对农户主粮生产的影响

[目的]粮食问题关系国家安全、政治稳定和社会安定,是实施乡村振兴战略的首要任务。深入剖析新时期下农户粮食生产的影响因素,是保证国家粮食安全的现实要求。[方法]文章基于农户实地调研数据,运用工具变量法和样本选择修正模型分析农业机械化水平对农户主粮生产的影响。[结果](1)农业机械化水平对农户主粮生产有显著的正向影响,农业机械化水平每提高1%,农户主粮单产就提高1.219%,其中,水稻单产增加1.220 7%,小麦单产增加0.807 6%,玉米单产增加1.106 4%,马铃薯单产增加1.3798%。(2)从控制变量来看,户主受教育年限、户主务农经验、粮食补贴、农药化肥投入和平原地形都对不同主粮作物生产有积极作用,家庭外出务工占比、土地流转和气候极端变化都对不同主粮作物生产有消极作用。[结论]在农户不大幅调整当前主粮种植结构的前提下,适当增加马铃薯种植面积,提高种粮农户农业机械补贴力度,推广农机社会化作业服务模式,从而提高粮食产量,保障国家粮食安全。     

Contract farming: opportunity cost and trade‐offs

An important literature has established that participation in contract farming leads to higher incomes and has a number of other beneficial effects on the welfare of participating households. Yet no one has looked at the opportunity cost of and the various trade‐offs involved in participating in contract farming. I look at the relationship between participation in contract farming and income from (i) livestock, (ii) labor markets, (iii) nonfarm businesses, and (iv) agricultural sources other than livestock and contract farming and (v) unearned income. Using data from Madagascar, I find that participation in contract farming is associated with a 79% decrease in how much income per capita the average household derives from labor markets and a 47% decrease in how much income per capita it derives from nonfarm businesses, but also with a 51% increase in how much income per capita the average household derives from agricultural sources other than livestock and contract farming, possibly due to technological spillovers. Thus, even though contract farming has been shown to improve welfare in multiple ways in this context, it looks as though those gains come at the cost of an “agricultural involution” on the part of participating households, who seem to turn away from non‐agricultural activities. This has important implications for structural transformation narratives.     

基于水权交易和面源污染控制的农户灌溉施肥行为模型

将水权交易和面源污染控制有机结合,以种植面积、农业用水定额、污染物浓度为约束条件,运用边际分析方法建立农户灌溉施肥行为模型,分析水权交易和排污控制对农户行为的影响。结果表明:灌溉用水量与农作物价格成正相关,与交易水价和边际灌溉成本成负相关;一定范围内肥料施用量与农作物价格成正相关,与边际施肥成本或边际环境成本成负相关。模型证明,当农业用水定额内水权可交易时,水市场的存在和水价政策将激励农户减少灌水量,节约用水。     

Farmers and Social Innovations in Rural Development: Collaborative Arrangements in Eastern Brazilian Amazon

Brazilian small-scale farmers are seeking new types of collaborations and economic opportunities amid a changing world. Market opportunities, however, have incurred demanding environmental, financial and labor requirements, and created trade-offs between expanding cash crops and maintaining livelihood security. We analyze the Tomé-Açu region in the Brazilian Amazon, where different collaborative models between small-scale farmers and other social agents (industries, government, non-governmental organizations) have emerged. Local farmers are engaging in collective actions and pursuing different types of partnerships, which facilitate knowledge exchange and access to market niches, also helping them overcome the infrastructural and logistical deficiencies that have historically limited rural development in the region. In particular, we discuss the diffusion and adoption of agroforestry and oil palm production systems among small-scale farmers. We examine the challenges and opportunities these partnerships and social innovations have created for local farmers, who are part of heterogeneous groups with distinct roles, assets and contexts. The state-led oil palm program posed challenges to small-scale farmers who experienced asymmetrical relationships within their partnership with private companies. On the other hand, the farmer-led agroforestry model opened new opportunities for farmers who had more flexibility in deciding their production arrangements, developing new agroforestry techniques, and pursuing commercialization pathways. Despite their limited power, small-scale farmers have been able to overcome some structural barriers through innovations, entrepreneurship, and renegotiation of oil palm contract farming. Thus, their ability to engage in both farmer-led agroforestry and state-led oil palm programs provides concrete examples of the potential of local governance based on collaborative arrangements to support sustainable farming production systems.     

Measuring the production efficiency of alternative land tenure contracts in a mixed crop-livestock system in Ethiopia

In this paper, we test the hypothesis that land held under varying configurations of property rights will be farmed at different levels of production efficiency. Production data were collected from 477 plots in a fairly productive, mixed fanning system in the Ethiopian highlands. Interspatial measures of total factor productivity, based on the Divisia index, were used to measure the relative production efficiency of three informal and less secure land contracts (rented, share-cropped and borrowed) relative to lands held under formal contract witli the Ethiopian government. Although the informally-contracted lands are farmed 10-16% less efficiently, the analysis indicates that farmers of such lands actually apply inputs more, rather than less, intensively (i.e., more inputs per unit of land). The gap in total factor productivity thus results from the inferior quality of inputs (or lack of skills in applying them) rather than a lack of incentive to allocate inputs to mixed crop-livestock farming. For this reason we find no empirical basis to support the hypothesis that land tenure is a constraint to agricultural productivity.     

劳动力禀赋、耕地破碎化与农户生态耕种决策行为

[目的]为清晰识别影响农户生态耕种决策行为的影响因素,为我国农业可持续发展,加快耕地数量、质量和生态“三位一体”保护目标的实现提供参考。[方法]文章利用江西省11市47县（区）共1 488份农户的调研数据,从农户劳动力禀赋结构转变和小农生产造成耕地破碎的两大社会现象切入,采用双栏模型将农户生态耕种决策行为分为采纳意愿和采纳程度两个阶段进行实证分析研究。[结果]（1）以中位数为划分依据,有生态耕种采纳意愿的农户数占样本总数的67.20%,有采纳意愿的农户对10项具体生态耕种行为的平均采纳数为5.323项;（2）家庭总人口对农户生态耕种采纳意愿与采纳程度均呈负相关、劳动力人数均呈正相关,兼业程度对农户生态耕种采纳程度呈正相关,耕地破碎化对农户生态耕种采纳意愿呈负相关;（3）农户生态耕种决策行为还受到受教育程度、农业收入占比、是否加入合作社、是否享受农业补贴等因素影响。[结论]政府及相关管理部门一方面应注重农户临时务工平台搭建,拓展相关信息视野以提升生态耕种采纳度;另一方面应规范和推动土地流转与土地整治,促进土地规模化经营,降低破碎度。     

Agricultural extension and imperfect supervision in contract farming: evidence from Madagascar

This article tests whether agricultural extension and imperfect supervision—conflated here into the number of visits by a technical assistant—increase productivity in a sample of contract farming arrangements between a processing firm and small agricultural producers in Madagascar. Production functions are estimated which treat the number of visits by a technical assistant as an input and which exploit the variation in the number of visits between the contracted crops grown on a given plot by a specific grower, thereby accounting for district‐, grower‐, and plot‐level unobserved heterogeneity. Results indicate that the elasticity of yield with respect to the number of visits lies between 1.3 and 1.7.