Cooperative membership and farmers’ choice of marketing channels – Evidence from apple farmers in Shaanxi and Shandong Provinces,China

Cooperatives are established to improve farmers' production conditions, to increase their bargaining power and to enable them to benefit from modern value chains. In China, farmers are members of a cooperative for multiple reasons. Little is known on whether and how cooperative membership affects farmers’ choice of marketing channels. This paper examines determinants of farmers’ choice of marketing channels, especially how cooperative membership impacts upon this choice. Our analysis is based on survey data collected in 2015 among 625 apple growing farm households in the provinces Shaanxi and Shandong. We employ endogenous switching probit models to deal with potential endogeneity of membership in estimating the determinants of marketing channel choices. We find that cooperative membership has a positive impact on selling to wholesalers and a negative impact on selling to small dealers, but no significant impact on selling to the cooperative itself. As products sold through cooperatives generally comply with relatively stringent food quality and safety standards, these results imply that policies promoting cooperative members to sell their products through cooperatives are likely to have a significant impact on food quality and food safety in China.     

Exploring double side-selling in cooperatives,case study of four coffee cooperatives in Rwanda

Apart from the difficulty to attract new members, leakage of sales outside the cooperative is a major challenge for the coffee cooperatives in Rwanda. Local (independent) traders still constitute a major market for coffee producers. Yet, cooperatives also accept the produce from non-members and pay them the same price. Our objective in this paper is to analyse the importance of this phenomenon of double side-selling. We collected data from a sample of 170 coffee farmers. We use a probit model to analyse characteristics linked to cooperative membership and to study double side-selling. We describe the trade relationships between farmers and the cooperative on the one hand, and between farmers and traders on the other by the attributes of transaction costs involved in the trade of coffee. Membership characteristics include easy access to labour, land tenure, risk aversion, and mutual trust between farmers and cooperatives’ management. Preference to sell to traders can be explained by the trust farmers seem to have in them after the repeated transactions in credit and basic consumption items and by long-term relationships in the community.     

Estimating effects of cooperative membership on farmers’ safe production behaviors: Evidence from pig sector in China

This research studies the determinants of pig farmers’ participation in farmers’ cooperatives and the effects of farmers’ cooperatives on pig farmers’ behaviors in adopting safe production practices using data from a household survey of 540 cooperative farmers and 270 non-cooperative farmers from four main pig production provinces in China. The propensity score matching (PSM) method was adopted to deal with possible self-selection bias associated with farmers’ participation in farmers’ cooperatives due to observables, which is further supplemented by a sensitivity analysis to assess the degree to which the PSM results are robust to the presence of unobservables. The PSM results show that the cooperative membership has significant and positive influence on farmers’ propensity to adopt safe production practices and the effects are heterogeneous across a number of key cooperative, farm and household attributes. Specifically, the membership effects tend to be bigger for cooperatives led by Investor-owned firms (IOFs) and farms of small production scale. And the effects tend to be greater for households (1) of medium and high level of education, (2) of less than 10 years of pig production experience, (3) of no off-farm job experience, and (4) that are specialized in pig production. The sensitivity analysis further increases our confidence in the results for the feed use and the breed use, however, the results for vaccination, drug use and waste disposable are more sensitive to the influence of unobservables, therefore should be interpreted with caution.     

Small farmer cooperatives and voluntary coffee certifications: Rewarding progressive farmers of engendering widespread change in Costa Rica?

Our research examines the benefits and drawbacks for cooperatives who participate in voluntary coffee certifications. We interviewed administrators at twenty Costa Rican coffee cooperatives about management practices related to voluntary certification. Voluntary certifications are popular among coffee cooperatives. Access to certified markets is facilitated by state support of the cooperative sector, regulation of the coffee sector and well-enforced environmental and social laws. However, there are no significant or consistent financial incentives for farmers to pursue certification. Multiple certifications may lower auditing and implementation costs, but cooperatives rarely receive the full premium for multiply-certified coffee. Low market demand for certified coffee, weak price incentives and high auditing and management costs encourage cooperatives to certify only a portion of their members. This strategy rewards compliant farmers rather than inducing widespread change to farming practices among the entire membership. Though financial incentives are weak, certifications offer non-financial benefits to both farmers and cooperatives, including better management and more resilient cooperatives.     

Impact of modern agricultural technologies on smallholder welfare: Evidence from Tanzania and Ethiopia

This paper evaluates the potential impact of adoption of improved legume technologies on rural household welfare measured by consumption expenditure in rural Ethiopia and Tanzania. The study utilizes cross-sectional farm household level data collected in 2008 from a randomly selected sample of 1313 households (700 in Ethiopia and 613 in Tanzania). The causal impact of technology adoption is estimated by utilizing endogenous switching regression. This helps us estimate the true welfare effect of technology adoption by controlling for the role of selection problem on production and adoption decisions. Our analysis reveals that adoption of improved agricultural technologies has a significant positive impact consumption expenditure (in per adult equivalent terms) in rural Ethiopia and Tanzania. This confirms the potential role of technology adoption in improving rural household welfare as higher consumption expenditure from improved technologies translate into lower poverty, higher food security and greater ability to withstand risk. An analysis of the determinants of adoption highlighted inadequate local supply of seed, access to information and perception about the new cultivars as key constraints for technology adoption.     

ICT-based market information and adoption of agricultural seed technologies: Insights from Uganda

Access to ICT-based market information is crucial to the adoption of agricultural seed technologies for maize, beans and groundnut and to improve smallholder farmer yields and income. This ICT-based market information is provided by FM radio stations and by market information centers through media such as mobile phones and internet facilities, etc. Factors that positively affect the probability of access to ICT-based market information include access to microfinance loans, membership in a farmer association, government awareness campaigns, and wealth. Distance to the trading centers or district capital negatively affects this access. The likelihood of access to ICT-based market information declines with female-headed households. Access to market information has a positive and significant impact on the intensity of adopting improved seed for all crops. Adoption of improved seed has a positive and significant effect on farm yields and gross farm returns. This research shows that in order to generate meaningful improvements in food security and farm incomes, there must be commensurate efforts to promote ICT-based market information along with yield-augmenting agricultural seed technologies.     

The adoption of radical manufacturing technologies and firm survival

The emergence of dramatically innovative, or radical, new manufacturing technologies can force pivotal and life‐threatening decisions for industry competitors. These technologies can represent a huge cost for adopting firms, but may also offer the chance to achieve competitive advantage through superior manufacturing. While prior research has considered a range of production process decisions (e.g., JIT, mass customization) and outcomes for end‐product technologies, little attention has been given to adoption decisions relative to core manufacturing technologies. This study examines an industry's adoption of major manufacturing technologies over several decades and demonstrates that two groups of contingencies related to adoption (e.g., timing and cumulative effects) have a significant impact on firm performance. Based on a sample of over 1,000 firms, the results provide insights into the effects of adoption timing and ‘manufacturing technology bundles’ on firm survival. We also find that adoption of manufacturing technologies prior to the inflection point of the estimated Bass diffusion curve for each technology leads to significant reduction in firm mortality. Thus, we are able to demonstrate the ability of the Bass model to predict the survival outcomes of firms facing manufacturing technology adoption decisions. The strategic implications of these pivotal decisions are considered. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Sustainable intensification among smallholder maize farmers in Ethiopia: Adoption and impacts under rainfall and unobserved heterogeneity

In addition to experimental data, using information collected from farmers is vital to assess the performance of candidate farming technologies. The latter provides the basis for farmers’ assessments and adoption decisions. Using detailed georeferenced plot and household level data from Ethiopia, this paper estimates the impact of a set of sustainability-enhancing agronomic practices on maize yields and implied net maize income with the aid of multinomial endogenous regime-switching regression that corrects for unobserved heterogeneity. The treatments’ effects on yield ranged from 29.5% for the fertilizer-dominant strategy to 88% in the case of fertilizer, maize-legume diversification, and soil and water conservation combinations. Second, while the impacts of the agronomic packages are significant in almost all states of the world, there were considerable heterogeneity effects conditioned on observed rainfall deviations from the historical average with levels effects of up to 92% and heterogeneity effects of 33–64%. The heterogeneous and rainfall-conditioned impacts point to the role of local biophysical modifiers of the impacts of agricultural practices. Investments in context-appropriate adaptation in agricultural research and extension is suggested.     

Can cooperatives brand? Exploring the interplay between cooperative structure and sustained brand marketing success

The marketing of much New Zealand farm produce has often been left in the hands of farmer/grower co-operatives. Increasingly concerns have been raised about the effectiveness of such structures. Marketers have identified the need for cooperatives to move from a farmer centric to a market centric approach. However, questions have been raised about the viability of traditional cooperative arrangements to support a market-oriented strategy. This article examines the ability of traditional and new generation co-operatives to develop and support market-based assets including brands and long-term relationships with channel buyers in order to develop a sustainable position for their members and increase returns. The findings suggest that traditional cooperatives may be able to develop innovative marketing programs but struggle to support them over the long-term due to problems in ownership structures. The new generation co-operatives studied had more sustained long-term success, as members were able to capture the equity of intangible assets such as brand value, thus ensuring they undertook actions (such as channel support) consistent with building a sustainable long-term positioning.     

Lead-farmer extension and smallholder valuation of new agricultural technologies in Tanzania

Encouraging the widespread adoption and use of new on-farm technologies is an important part of productivity-led strategies to promote agricultural transformation. While many interventions have been designed to promote adoption through extension and education, little is known about how these efforts influence farmer willingness-to-pay (WTP) for new technologies. We use a Becker-DeGroot-Marschak (BDM) mechanism to elicit farmer WTP for two improved seed varieties and a new seed treatment product, Apron Star, under two different lead-farmer extension treatments in Tanzania: (i) a demonstration plot showcasing the technologies within a village; and (ii) a demonstration plot coupled with distribution of trial packs enabling some farmers to test the technologies on their own land. In the BDM, farmers were presented with six products – the two bean varieties: without Apron Star, with Apron Star already applied, and with a sachet of Apron Star for the farmer to treat the seed him/herself. Our results suggest that neither extension treatment significantly affects WTP for these technologies. However, we find that farmers are willing to pay more for seed that is pre-treated with Apron Star than for seed bundled with a sachet of Apron Star for self-treatment.     

Technology Adoption in Online Social Networks

With the advances of information technology, online social networks are becoming increasingly important venues for technology adoption. However, although the dynamics of technology adoption in real world social networks have been well documented, technology adoption in online social networks remains relatively under‐explored. This study identifies the differences between online and offline social networks and proposes a framework to investigate the dynamics of technology adoption in online social networks. To illustrate the proposed research framework, this study employs behavior‐link panel data obtained from an open source software (OSS) development network to examine how online social networks affect the adoption of Subversion, the latest OSS version control technology. Based on social network theory, co‐membership is used to construct online social networks within the OSS development network. Methodologically, this study takes advantage of the panel dataset and addresses the issues of simultaneity and individual heterogeneity that frequently confound the relationship between network structure and adoption decision, and as a result it demonstrates a more compelling relationship between social networks and technology adoption. The results of this study reveal that social networks are major conduits for technology adoption in an online social network in terms of imitation, leadership, lock‐in, similarity, recency, and team size effects. In online social networks, one's decision to adopt a new technology is strongly influenced by the actions of the connected others. Project leaders have a stronger influence over other members in technology adoption decision making, even in informal virtual teams where traditional governance structures do not apply. Older projects exhibit stronger inertia and thus lack innovativeness. Similarities among projects facilitate faster adoption, and the effect of leadership attenuates in the networks with increasing project dissimilarity. Recent adoptions of technology within the networks, rather than more distant ones, have a stronger impact on subsequent adoption, implying the salience of memory over usage confidence, and increased size of a project team accelerates the rate of adoption. These results help in understanding the dynamics of technology adoption in online social networks, and provide useful guidelines for firms to promote technology and product innovation.     

Impact of information and communication technologies on agricultural households’ welfare in Benin

Information technologies are very important to transform the agricultural sector and improve economic performance. Nevertheless, does the use of information and communication technologies (ICT) improve agricultural households' welfare? To answer this, the study used a nationally representative household survey, the Comprehensive Food Security and Vulnerability Analysis (CFSVA) carried out in 2017 in Benin. The survey covered a sample of 15 000 households, however, the analysis focused on the 6502 agricultural households. An endogenous switching regression model was employed to control for selection bias and endogeneity issues. Results indicated that the use of ICT increases households' consumption expenditure by 89.6%. This implies that the use of ICT improves agricultural households' welfare. Other variables that affect agricultural households’ welfare include age, marital status, farm size, access to credit, ownership of livestock, membership in a farmer-based organization, and region of residence. Furthermore, the decision to use ICT in agricultural households depends on the level of education, age, sex, marital status, farm size, access to credit, ownership of livestock, membership in a farmer based organization, and location. These findings suggest that policies that promote the use of ICT are key to improving welfare of agricultural households in Benin. These policies must consider demographic, socio-economic, and institutional characteristics of households.     

Do lower yielding farmers benefit from Bt corn? Evidence from instrumental variable quantile regressions

There have been serious questions about whether lower-yielding farmers in developing countries, who are typically poor smallholders, benefit from genetically-modified crops like Bacillus thuringensis (Bt) corn. This article examines this issue by estimating the heterogeneous impacts of Bt corn adoption at different points of the yield distribution using farm-level survey data from the Philippines. A recently developed estimation technique called instrumental variable quantile regression (IVQR) is used to assess the heterogeneous yield effects of Bt corn adoption and at the same time address potential selection bias that usually plague impact assessment of agricultural technologies. We find that the positive yield impact of Bt corn in the Philippines tend to be more strongly felt by farmers at the lower end of the yield distribution. This result suggests that Bt corn could be a “pro-poor” technology since most of the lower-yielding farmers in the Philippines are poor smallholders with low incomes.     

The seed and agricultural biotechnology industries in India: An analysis of industry structure,competition, and policy options

Since the late 1980s, technological advances and policy reforms have created new opportunities for private-sector investment in India’s seed and agricultural biotechnology industries. These changes have had a significant impact on cotton yields and output in India, but less so for rice and wheat—the country’s main cereal staples—for which yield growth rates are tending toward stagnation. This analysis examines the structures of these industries, their potential effects on competition and innovation, and the policies that may improve both industry performance and the delivery of new productivity-enhancing technologies to India’s cereal production systems. Our findings suggest that more substantive policy reforms are needed to encourage further innovation, reduce regulatory uncertainty, and encourage firm- and industry-level growth, while continued public spending on agricultural research is needed to support technological change.     

Does food processing mitigate consumers’ concerns about crops grown with recycled water?

This paper presents results from a field experiment designed to evaluate whether food processing alleviates consumers’ concerns about crops grown with recycled water. Recycled water has emerged as a potentially safe and cost-effective way to replace or supplement traditional irrigation water. However, adoption of recycled water by U.S. agricultural producers has been modest, in part, because of concerns that consumers will be reluctant to accept their products. Our results suggest that simple processing of foods such as drying or liquefying can relieve some of consumers’ concerns about use of recycled irrigation water. While consumers of processed foods are indifferent between irrigation with recycled and conventional water, they are less willing to pay for fresh foods irrigated with recycled water relative to conventional water. We also found that consumers would experience a welfare gain from a labeling policy communicating the use of recycled irrigation water on both processed and fresh foods. Our analysis further reveals that informational nudges that provide consumers with messages about benefits, risks, and both the benefits and risks of using recycled water have no statistically significant effect on consumers’ willingness to pay for fresh and processed foods irrigated with recycled water relative to a no-information control group.     

Women’s empowerment boosts the gains in dietary diversity from agricultural technology adoption in rural Kenya

Using new survey data from rural Kenya, this paper assesses the moderating effect of women’s empowerment on the relationship between agricultural technology adoption and women’s dietary diversity. We use a multiple treatment endogenous switching regression framework to control for potential endogeneity of women’s empowerment and technology adoption. We find that women’s empowerment has a positive and significant effect on the women’s dietary diversity score regardless of technology adoption status. We further show that women’s empowerment enhances the positive effects of technology adoption on women’s dietary diversity. Although technology adoption has a positive impact on women’s dietary diversity regardless of empowerment status, its effect is stronger for households with empowered vs. disempowered women. Study results suggest that individual and household welfare could be enhanced to a greater degree through interventions that promote women’s empowerment and technology adoption simultaneously rather than separately.     

People and process,suits and innovators: the role of individuals in firm performance

Performance differences between firms are generally attributed to organizational factors rather than to differences among the individuals who make up firms. As a result, little is known about the part that individual firm members play in explaining the variance in performance among firms. This paper employs a multiple membership cross‐classified multilevel model to test the degree to which organizational or individual factors explain firm performance. The analysis also examines whether individual differences among middle managers or innovators best explain firm performance variation. The results indicate that variation among individuals matter far more in organizational performance than is generally assumed. Further, variation among middle managers has a particularly large impact on firm performance, much larger than that of those individuals who are assigned innovative roles. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Market Power and Incentives to Form Research Consortia

It is well known that instability is a limit to the formation of cartels, and that some synergies are required to give cartel members an advantage over outsiders. In this paper, we explore theoretically the linkage between cost-reduction alliances (like research joint ventures) and the formation of cartels. The former have negative external impacts on outsiders, while the latter have positive external effects on outside (independent) competitors. We find that when the decisions to join both are made simultaneously the cartel can be profitable and stable for a smaller number of members than previously found for cartel formation alone by Salant et al. (1983, Quarterly Journal of Economics 98, 185–199). This result follows both for open membership and exclusive membership rules, and suggests a possible anticompetitive impact of research joint ventures.