Organic agriculture is often perceived as more sustainable than conventional farming. We review the literature on this topic from a global perspective. In terms of environmental and climate change effects, organic farming is less polluting than conventional farming when measured per unit of land but not when measured per unit of output. Organic farming, which currently accounts for only 1% of global agricultural land, is lower yielding on average. Due to higher knowledge requirements, observed yield gaps might further increase if a larger number of farmers would switch to organic practices. Widespread upscaling of organic agriculture would cause additional loss of natural habitats and also entail output price increases, making food less affordable for poor consumers in developing countries. Organic farming is not the paradigm for sustainable agriculture and food security, but smart combinations of organic and conventional methods could contribute toward sustainable productivity increases in global agriculture.

Poverty is prevalent in the small-farm sector of many developing countries. A large literature suggests that contract farming—a preharvest agreement between farmers and buyers—can facilitate smallholder market participation, improve household welfare, and promote rural development. These findings have influenced the development policy debate, but the external validity of the extant evidence is limited. Available studies typically focus on a single contract scheme or on a small geographical area in one country. We generate evidence that is generalizable beyond a particular contract scheme, crop, or country, using nationally representative survey data from 6 countries. We focus on the implications of contract farming for household income and labor demand, finding that contract farmers obtain higher incomes than their counterparts without contracts only in some countries. Contract farmers in most countries exhibit increased demand for hired labor, which suggests that contract farming stimulates employment, yet we do not find evidence of spillover effects at the community level. Our results challenge the notion that contract farming unambiguously improves welfare. We discuss why our results may diverge from previous findings and propose research designs that yield greater internal and external validity. Implications for policy and research are relevant beyond contract farming.

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Journal articleIFPRI3; ISIEPTDP

Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Terms of use: Documents in AbstractAgricultural commercialization can help to lift subsistence farmers out of poverty, but can also have adverse effects on gender equality. We explore whether private food standards -with their particular elements to regulate production and trade -could serve as a vehicle to promote gender equality in the small farm sector. We use gender-disaggregated data from coffee producers in Uganda and focus on two sustainability standards that explicitly address gender issues, namely Fairtrade and UTZ. Entropy balancing techniques, combined with estimates of farmers' willingness to accept standards, are used to control for possible selection bias when comparing certified and non-certified households. We find that standards and their certification programs increase wealth in male-headed and female-headed households. In male-headed households, standards also change the intra-household distribution of asset ownership: while in non-certified households, assets are predominantly owned by the male household head alone, in certified households most assets are jointly owned by the male head and his female spouse. Standards also improve access to agricultural extension for both male and female farmers. Effects on women's access to financial services are statistically insignificant. Private standards cannot completely eliminate gender disparities, but the findings suggest that they can contribute towards this goal.

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Although many studies analyzed effects of sustainability standards—such as Fairtrade or Rainforest Alliance—on smallholder farmers in developing countries, most did not sufficiently account for systematic differences between certified and noncertified farmers. Certified farmers are typically organized in cooperatives. When sampling only from a small number of cooperatives, as previous studies did, it is not easy to disentangle certification effects from possible cooperative effects. Here, we address this shortcoming by randomly sampling from a large number of cooperatives, thus better capturing existing institutional heterogeneity. In particular, we collect and use data from cocoa farmers in Côte d'Ivoire who are organized in Fairtrade‐certified and noncertified cooperatives. Regression models with instrumental variables show that Fairtrade has positive and significant effects on cocoa yields, prices, and living standards. These effects remain significant also after controlling for cooperative characteristics, but the magnitude of the estimates changes. We draw two conclusions. First, in Côte d'Ivoire, Fairtrade certification benefits farmers economically. Second, and more generally, cooperative characteristics are jointly correlated with certification and relevant outcomes, which needs to be accounted for to avoid bias when evaluating the benefits of sustainability standards in the small farm sector.