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.

Purpose Several years after the regularization of microfinance activity in Côte d’Ivoire, smallholder farmers’ access to microfinance credits still remains marginal. The purpose of this paper is to identify and analyze key determinants of access to microfinance credit in Sassandra-Marahoué District. Design/methodology/approach A total of 150 smallholder farmers were randomly sampled using an interview guide and semi-structured questionnaires. Univariate statistics and Probit binary modeling were employed for data analyses. Findings Results revealed that socio-economic/demographic characteristics of smallholder farmers and credit requirements imposed by microfinance institutions (MFIs) are key determinants of smallholder farmers’ access to microfinance credits in the district. Research limitations/implications Although, the authors shed light on the determinants of microfinance credit access for smallholder farmers in this district, the study focused on a single source of financial credit. Future research will need to explore the determinants of credit demand and the choice between different sources of rural credits in Côte d’Ivoire. Practical implications The findings suggest that MFIs seldom take into account smallholder farmers who are not engaged in off-farm income-generating activities and savings account; and those with low level of education. Sensitization programs on the importance of savings mobilization and credit policy by MFIs will potentially increase smallholder’s knowledge on credit access requirements and thereby increased access. Originality/value To the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study investigating determinants of smallholder farmers’ access to microfinance credits in Côte d’Ivoire specifically in the Sassandra-Marahoué District. The results of this study will serve as a guide for MFIs for improving smallholder farmers’ access to credit.

A good reputation is the basis for rice farmers to survive and gain trust from buyers in a competitive business environment. However, due to the existence of information asymmetry between buyers and rice farmers, the moral hazard problem is the key obstacle that impedes the benefits of related shareholders and hinders the efficiency of contract farming negotiations. It is crucial to design a control mechanism to avoid the negative impact of the moral hazard. This paper studies the principal and agent relationship between rice farmers and buyer in contract farming negotiation. Because of the influence of information asymmetry, many buyers have suffered from being cheated by rice farmers who fail to comply with the terms of the contract or provide fraudulent products in practice. These frequent cases will function to deteriorate any long-term relationships between rice farmers and buyers. The study focuses on the analysis of the causes of moral risks and the effect of reputation on moral risk utilizing repeated game theory. The purpose of this paper is to help both rice farmers and buyers effectively avoid moral hazards and achieve a win-win situation in contract farming negotiation. The result show that the rice farmer in contract farming practices has the incentive to maintain his reputation in order to gain more profits in the future. That also accounts for the reasons why the rice farmer will invest more to improve the customer's service level, caring about the quality of product and the comments of finished contractor customer, to keep a longer farmer-buyer relationship. The rice farmer in contract farming practices has the incentive to maintain his reputation in order to gain more profits in the future and this means that contract farming can be developed with great success in Benin.

This study aims to identify the factors that limit the accessibility of rice farmers to credit in Benin. Data were collected from 120 randomly selected rice households in the municipality of Glazoue. The logit dichotomous model was used to analyze the data and various statistics were produced for this purpose using the Stata 13 software. The results of prediction model show that the model has a high predictive power and the explanatory power giving by the value of the Pseudo  2 of McFadden (60.85%) show that more than 60% of the explanatory variables of the model make rice farmers' access to credit easier to understand. Literacy (P <0.001) and the part of income from rice in the monthly income of the rice farmer (P <0.001) had a positive effect on the rice farmer's capacity to have access to credit. Rice as the main speculation in terms of income (P <0.001) and household size (P <0.001) had a negative effect on access to credit. In order to facilitate rice farmers' access to agricultural credit, particular emphasis should be placed on the level of literacy of farmer, his monthly income from rice production, the size of his household and his main crop. This study recommends that the actors adapt to the service offering of microfinance to the socioeconomic conditions of rice farmers to enable them to access credit and increase rice production. This would help to meet the demand for rice, and, in turn, contribute to the reducing food insecurity in Benin.