Private sustainability standards are increasingly important in food trade with developing countries, but the implications for smallholder farmers are still poorly understood. We analyze the implications of different coffee certification schemes in Ethiopia using cross-sectional survey data, and regression and propensity-score-matching techniques. We find that: Rainforest Alliance (RA) and double Fairtrade-Organic (FT-Org) certifications are associated with higher incomes and reduced poverty, mainly because of higher prices; Fairtrade (FT) certification hardly affects welfare; and Organic (Org) certification reduces incomes, chiefly due to lower yields. Cooperative heterogeneity importantly shapes these results. Results imply that private standards may not always deliver what they promise to consumers.

We acknowledge funding from the CGIAR Research Program on Policies, Institutions and Markets (grant number 2018X044.KUL); NUFFIC Niche program, Strongbow Project; the KU Leuven research fund under C2 programs (grant number C24M/19/031). We thank two anonymous reviewers and seminar participants in Leuven and Goettingen for critical and useful comments on earlier versions of the paper. We thank all enumerators for their hard work in collecting data and all respondents who readily shared their time, knowledge and experience, in support of these studies.

We analyze whether private sustainability standards can improve the economic benefits from less intensified semi-forest coffee production in southwestern Ethiopia. We compare garden and semi-forest coffee systems, including non-certified and Rainforest Alliance certified semiforest coffee, and evaluate yields, returns to land, returns to labor and profits. We use original household-and plot-level survey from 454 households and 758 coffee plots derived from a household survey and Geographic Information Systems, and ordinary least squares and fixed effects regression models. We find that more intensified garden coffee plots bring about higher yields and returns to land than less intensified semi-forest coffee plots; and that Rainforest Alliance certification of semi-forest coffee leads to higher returns to land and labor, and profits than non-certified semi-forest and garden coffee, mainly by guaranteeing farmers a better price and not by improving yields. Findings imply that in southwestern Ethiopia coffee certification can support farmers' incentives for land-sharing between coffee production and semi-natural forest conservation. Highlights-Static comparison of garden coffee, and certified and non-certified semi-forest coffee -OLS and fixed effects models to control for observed and unobserved heterogeneity -Higher economic benefits for garden coffee than for less intensified semi-forest coffee -Rainforest Alliance certification of semi-forest coffee results in higher returns and profits -Rainforest Alliance certification supports incentives for land-sharing