Investigated in this work is the impact of contract farming participation on smallholder farmers’ income and food security in rice crop production in Northern Benin using 400 randomly selected rice farmer households. Unlike previous studies, we corrected for both observed and unobserved biases by combining propensity score matching (PSM) and the local average treatment effect parameter (LATE). The results showed significant negative consequences of partaking in rice contract farming. We found evidence of significant negative effects on rice production income at a 1% level. The more the rice farmers join in contract farming, the lower the farm income became. Decreased food consumption was also a result of contract farming participation for potential participants by a score of 60.64, placing their households at the food security status level of poor food consumption because the quantity and nutritional quality of the food consumed were inadequate. Contract farming is, therefore, not a reasonable policy instrument that can help farmers increase their income and improve their food security level in the Alibori Department, Benin if farmers do not diversify their crops. The necessary resources and economic environment are not yet in place to allow contract farming to take full advantage of its potential benefits. To prevent the wasting of scarce public resources, expanding contract farming would not be appropriate in marginal areas with markets and other infrastructure. Additional measures are needed for contract farming to be profitable for contracting actors and to ensure sustainability and the large-scale participation of farmers.
A substantial amount of rice grains is lost along the value chain, contributing to food insecurity among farming households in Benin. While food losses are inevitable along the value chain, it is imperative to determine the minimum acceptable loss for rice. This study aims to quantify the food losses of rice and determine its effect on food security using the Food Consumption Score (FCS) and Linear model. The results show a positive effect of a low loss rate on the FCS. In addition, a low loss rate increases the probability of FCS by 82.4 for the overall rice farmers and 83.7 for the efficient rice producers. Thus, reducing the loss rate throughout the food chain to a maximum of 10% would increase the amount of local rice on the market and allow producers to achieve food security. The study recommends sensitizing stakeholders along the rice value chain on strategies or technologies to reduce losses.
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