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 AbstractThe debate on trade and poverty is reinforced by recent studies on the role of standards. It is argued that increasing standards act as trade barriers for developing countries and cause further marginalization of the poor. This paper is the first to quantify income and poverty effects of such high-standards trade and to integrate labor market effects, by using company and household survey data from the vegetable export chain in Senegal. We find that exports have grown sharply despite increasing standards, resulting in important income gains and poverty reduction. Our estimates indicate that poverty is 14 % points lower due to vegetable exports. Tightening food standards induced a shift from smallholder contract-based farming to large-scale integrated estate production, altering the mechanism through which poor households benefit: through labor markets instead of product markets. The impact on poverty reduction is stronger as the poorest benefit relatively more from working on large-scale farms than from contract farming.JEL Classification: F14; F16; I3; Q12; Q13; Q17

Losses of biodiversity and ecosystem functioning due to rainforest destruction and agricultural intensification are prime concerns for science and society alike. Potentially, ecosystems show nonlinear responses to land-use intensification that would open management options with limited ecological losses but satisfying economic gains. However, multidisciplinary studies to quantify ecological losses and socioeconomic tradeoffs under different management options are rare. Here, we evaluate opposing land use strategies in cacao agroforestry in Sulawesi, Indonesia, by using data on species richness of nine plant and animal taxa, six related ecosystem functions, and on socioeconomic drivers of agroforestry expansion. Expansion of cacao cultivation by 230% in the last two decades was triggered not only by economic market mechanisms, but also by rarely considered cultural factors. Transformation from near-primary forest to agroforestry had little effect on overall species richness, but reduced plant biomass and carbon storage by Ϸ75% and species richness of forest-using species by Ϸ60%. In contrast, increased land use intensity in cacao agroforestry, coupled with a reduction in shade tree cover from 80% to 40%, caused only minor quantitative changes in biodiversity and maintained high levels of ecosystem functioning while doubling farmers' net income. However, unshaded systems further increased income by Ϸ40%, implying that current economic incentives and cultural preferences for new intensification practices put shaded systems at risk. We conclude that low-shade agroforestry provides the best available compromise between economic forces and ecological needs. Certification schemes for shade-grown crops may provide a market-based mechanism to slow down current intensification trends.agricultural economics ͉ agroforestry management ͉ land use change ͉ plant-animal interactions ͉ ecosystem goods and services G lobal-scale conversion of tropical rainforests and agricultural intensification are major causes of biodiversity loss, and threaten ecosystem functioning, sustainable land use and local economies depending on natural resources (1-3). Developing strategies to reconcile human needs with the integrity of our environment is a major task for ecologists and socio-economists alike (4), but multitaxa studies are rare (5-6) and too little is known about the human dimension of land use changes (4, 7-11) and consequences for ecosystem functioning (1,2,(12)(13)(14). Furthermore, most ecological and economic studies on ecosystem services are carried out separately so that information cannot be brought together (15). Particularly, quantitative data on potential tradeoffs between biodiversity loss and agricultural intensification including natural habitat conversion is missing. Two competing solutions propose either wildlife-friendly farming on the cost of agricultural yields or land sparing by agricultural intensification to minimize the demand for natural habitat (16). The evaluation of such opposing land use options depends on t...

Food and agricultural commodity value chains in developing and transition countries have undergone tremendous changes in the past decades. Companies and property rights have been privatized, markets liberalized, and economies integrated into global food systems. The liberalization and privatization initially caused the collapse of state-controlled vertical coordination. More recently, private vertical coordination systems have emerged and are growing rapidly as a response to consumer demand for food quality and safety on the one hand and the farms' production constraints caused by factor market imperfections. In this article we (1) demonstrate the importance of these changes, (2) discuss the implications for efficiency and equity, and (3) provide empirical evidence on the effects in several developing and transition countries. Copyright 2007 International Association of Agricultural Economists.

We analyze the inclusiveness and effectiveness of agricultural cooperatives in Rwanda. We estimate mean income and poverty effects of cooperative membership using propensity score matching techniques. We analyze heterogeneous treatment effects across farmers by analyzing how estimated treatment effects vary over farm and farmer characteristics and over the estimated propensity score. We find that cooperative membership in general increases income and reduces poverty and that these effects are largest for larger farms and in more remote areas. We find evidence of a negative selection as impact is largest for farmers with the lowest propensity to be a cooperative member.

Agricultural policies in Rwanda focus on agricultural intensification and increased market orientation of the smallholder farm sector. Cooperatives are seen as key vehicles in this, but little is known about their effectiveness to achieve these goals. In this article, we analyze the impact of cooperative membership on the agricultural performance of rural households in Rwanda. We use cross-sectional survey data, collected in 2012, to analyze the impact of cooperative membership on different agricultural performance indicators, including indicators on agricultural intensification, market orientation, farm revenue, and income. We use several econometric techniques to deal with potential selection bias in estimating the impact of cooperative membership, including a proxy variable method based on a willingness to pay measure and propensity score matching methods. We find that cooperative membership in general has a positive impact on farm performance but these effects are driven by specific types of cooperatives.JEL classifications: D13, O13, Q12, Q13

While there is a large literature on agricultural technology adoption, evidence from the poorest countries is still lacking and the decision-making process of farmers is still poorly understood. We empirically analyze mineral fertilizer adoption among poor and food insecure smallholder farmers in South-Kivu, eastern DR Congo, after its introduction by a research and extension program. We disentangle the adoption process in an awareness step, a tryout decision, and a continued adoption decision. We show that variables commonly used to explain agricultural technology adoption, and the different program interventions, have a different impact on the different steps in the adoption process.

Supply chain upgrading in domestic and staple food chains in developing countries is important for a more efficient supply to growing urban markets. Little research is done on institutional innovations, such as contract-farming, in these chains. Research on the impact of smallholder contract-farming largely focuses on export-oriented high-value commodities. In this paper, we assess the welfare implications of smallholder contract-farming in the rice sector in Benin, using farm-household survey data and applying propensity score matching and difference-indifference estimation. We find that contract-farming is associated with higher rice incomes, higher yields, higher input use, increased commercialization and higher farm-gate prices.

The global food system is undergoing rapid processes of transformation and modernisation. This is causing important changes in developingcountry food supply chains, particularly in supermarket-driven and highvalue export chains, but the welfare implications of these changes are poorly understood. This article analyses and compares the welfare effects in different horticulture export chains in sub-Saharan Africa, disentangling different types of effects and the channels through which rural households are affected. Its main conclusion is that increased high-value exports and the modernisation of export supply chains can bring about important positive welfare effects, which can occur in various ways through productor labour-market effects and through direct and indirect effects.