Impacts of Aggregator Business on Farmers’ Income

Agricultural produces pass a long journey from the farms up to the end consumers. With the advancement of information technology, aggregator businesses have emerged to shorten the long distribution chain. Therefore, farmers as producers can access information both on prices received by consumers and the characteristics of products demanded by consumers. This study aims to (1) explain the distribution chain mechanism through the aggregator business, and (2) analyze the impact on farmers who join the aggregator business distribution chain. There were 12 aggregator businesses and 36 farmers were interviewed as respondents from February to April 2019 using the purposive sampling method. The analysis was conducted using a descriptive approach and a paired sample t-test was carried out to see the impact of the existence of an aggregator on farmers. The results showed that the distribution chain through the aggregator business was shorter compared to the conventional one in which farmers had specific contracts or agreements with the aggregator business. The impact on farmers who join the aggregator business distribution chain is receiving higher prices, leading to increase farmers' income, transparency in prices where farmers know the selling prices at the consumer level, and farmers know consumer preferences for the products. It is expected that farmers will be able to produce better agricultural produces according to consumer preferences as well as to increase farmers' income. Keywords: distribution chain, price, product preferences, transparenc

Estimating effects of price-distorting policies using alternative distortions databases

This paper addresses three questions relating to the very extensive use of the GTAP global trade protection database: Are there additional price-distorting policy instruments worthy of inclusion in the base year? What is the appropriate counterfactual set of price distortions in the year of concern (such as when a proposed reform is expected to be fully implemented, as distinct from the base year)? And how are the price distortions (e.g. tariff rates) on individual products aggregated to the GTAP product groups? We show the estimated welfare effects of policies can change substantially when more-appropriate measures of distortions are used

CURRENT ISSUES AFFECTING TRADE AND TRADE POLICY: AN ANNOTATED LITERATURE REVIEW

This review provides a base of literature describing current issues and research on the impacts of lobalization and the industrialization of agriculture and recent approaches to analyze and model agricultural trade and trade policies. Three key factors of the survey are differentiated goods, global economic integration and international supply chain linkages. The review covers 182 publications, which are presented alphabetically by author with a brief annotation describing how it relates to the above criteria. The articles are also indexed by keyword. A brief summary highlights the documented literature and includes a series of issues for future discussion and research.International Relations/Trade,

Credit Markets for Small Farms: Role for Institutional Innovations

Indian agriculture is characterized by the predominance of smallholders. This paper seeks to examine the access of small holders to agriculture credit in the context of financial sector reforms in India in the nineties. It explores the role of institutional and non institutional agencies in extending agriculture credit to the smallholder and the ground realities as revealed by recent data sets. The nineties also saw the unfolding of the largest microfinance programme in the world in India. While this was very successful in bringing micro enterprises under the credit purview, it was unable to cater to the need for agriculture credit. This paper examines the reasons for this and suggests that newer kinds of institutional innovations in the Pilot stage like, Joint Liability Groups, VDC- Farmers Club Model, SHG-Contract Farming Linkage model which seek to overcome the difficulties faced by smallholders in accessing agriculture credit are effective. They need to be upscaled and mainstreamed in order to bring about vibrancy in the rural credit market in India.Agriculture credit, Farm Size, Land Economics/Use, Q1, Q15,

Addressing Risk and Uncertainty in Water Quality Trading Markets

Across the United States, water quality trading is being explored as a mechanism for reducing the costs of cleaning up impaired waterbodies. Trading between point sources, such as wastewater treatment plants, and nonpoint sources, such as agriculture, can cut costs for regulated entities needing to reduce pollutants, and generate revenue for agricultural producers who generate credits. However, water quality trading, particularly between point and nonpoint sources, can face inherent uncertainties around quantification of nonpoint source reductions, participant behavior, regulations, and market supply and demand. Effectively addressing uncertainties is crucial to ensuring the success of these markets and improving water quality. This paper establishes a framework from which to engage federal and state agencies, program developers, and stakeholders in a dialogue about these uncertainties and appropriate mechanisms for addressing them

Brokering Development: Enabling Factors for Public-Private-Producer Partnerships in Agricultural Value Chains

Markets are central to agriculture and rural development. Making markets, value chains and the systems that support them work better for the poor has therefore become a central aim of many donors, governments and nongovernmental organisations. This research seeks to understand how public-private-producer partnerships (PPPPs) in agricultural value chains can be designed and implemented to achieve more sustained increases in income for smallholder farmers and broader rural development. PPPPs involve cooperation between government and business agents, working together to reach a common goal or carry out a specific task, while jointly assuming risks and responsibilities, and sharing resources and competences.1 They also explicitly involve farmers (or producers), hence the fourth ‘P’ is added to the more familiar designation of ‘public-private partnerships’. The research also considers the role of PPPP brokers as independent facilitators who support the process of exploring, designing and implementing PPPPs. The research is based on four case studies of agricultural value chain PPPPs developed through projects financed by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) in Ghana, Indonesia, Rwanda and Uganda. In each country, local research teams collected data through a mixture of semi-structured interviews, field visits and focus group discussions (FGDs) with local market chain actors, smallholder farmers and other community members, and relevant experts. These were not impact assessments, and represent instead a snapshot in time. However, the aim was to gain insights into the outcomes of the PPPPs so far, and how these have been influenced by the way the PPPP was designed, implemented and brokered

A Bibliometric Analysis of Middlemen Research: A Closer Look at Agricultural Marketing

The presence of an aggregator business in agricultural marketing complicates the current understanding of middlemen. The presence of intermediaries has begun to be questioned and even considered a threat to the supply chain. This study aims to (1) analyze the evolution of research middlemen in influencing agricultural marketing and (2) identify what issues are developing in middlemen in agricultural marketing. Data were analyzed from 425 journals registered with Scopus from 1974 to 2021. The data were then processed and analyzed using Tableau, Ms. Excel, and VOSviewer. It generates bibliometric maps against middlemen in agricultural marketing through bibliometric analysis. The development of the middlemen issue discusses its implications for agribusiness management, social capital, value chains, and prices. The existence of middlemen cannot be fully considered as threatening the supply chain. The involvement of middlemen in the supply chain still has a strong influence on farmers, especially in developing countries. Keywords: agricultural marketing, bibliometric analysis, middlemen, supply chain, VOSviewe

Connecting the Concepts of Frugality and Inclusion to Appraise Business Practices in Systems of Food Provisioning:A Kenyan Case Study

Small and medium size business enterprises (SMEs) are the linchpin in systems of food provisioning in sub-Saharan Africa. These businesses occupy the middle of the agri-food chain and face a food security conundrum: they must ensure that smallholder producers of limited means can operate under fair terms while low-income consumers are supplied with affordable and nutritious food. This task becomes even more challenging when resources are scarce. This paper explores how resource-constrained SMEs arrange the terms on which both farmers and consumers are included in agri-food chains. To this end, it combines the concept of inclusion with that of frugality. We use the case of a Kenyan SME to demonstrate how a focus on frugality can advance our understanding of how business practices create thriving business relationships with smallholders while simultaneously ensuring access to affordable food for consumers. We additionally identify what conditions for inclusion emerge from this type of dynamic business practices. Our perspective departs from assessing induced organisational interventions, such as contract farming or cooperatives, which deliberately shorten the agri-food chain, thereby overlooking the skilful practices being employed by business actors in the middle of the chain.</p

Strengthening non-state climate action: a progress assessment of commitments launched at the 2014 UN Climate Summit

This report provides the first progress assessment of climate actions launched at the 2014 UN Climate Summit in New York. It considers the distribution and performance of climate actions along multiple dimensions that are relevant to both mitigation and adaptation. While it is too early for a conclusive assessment of the effectiveness of climate actions, this study makes a first and indispensable step toward such an assessment. Initial findings are encouraging. One year after their launch, most climate actions have performed well in terms of producing outputs, putting them on track to implementing their commitments in the coming years. The research for this project is underpinned by the Global Aggregator for Climate Actions (GAFCA), a database developed between January and September 2015 by a research team at the German Development Institute/Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik (DIE) and the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). GAFCA includes data on organizational characteristics, geography of implementation and output performance of climate actions. It creates the foundation for a long-term systematic examination of climate actions that can inform more effective efforts to strengthen such actions. Our analysis is focused on three broad questions: Have organizers of the 2014 UN Climate Summit engaged a wide range of non-state and sub-national actions that set targets relevant to both mitigation and adaptation? Do climate actions align with the interests of both developing and developed countries, and do they achieve an appropriate balance in implementation in the global North and South? Have climate actions started to deliver on their commitments one year since they were launched at the 2014 UN Climate Summit? (Output performance