Collective market participation for improved income among smallholder farming households: a case of Balaka Innovation Platform in Malawi

Abstract

Collective market participation can reduce transaction costs and information asymmetries, which can build up market power. The objective of this study was to evaluate decisions to participate in collective marketing and its effect on household income among smallholder farmers in an Innovation Platform (IP). This study targeted the Balaka IP in Malawi. Collective marketing identified as critical for improving households' incomes, is one of the activities that Balaka Innovation Platform has been addressing since its formation in 2009. The study involved a sample of 115 randomly selected households from Balaka Innovation Platform. The odds of participating in collective marketing by smallholder farm households in Balaka was significantly influenced by gender, education level, access to social capital through membership in farmer groups that form the Innovation Platform, farming experience, adoption/practice of conservation agriculture and possession of assets e.g. cellphone and bicycle. Moreover, results indicate that functions of IPs such as organising farmers to market collectively, promoting crop diversification, improved extension service, credit access through linkages to microfinance, communication and market linkages, positively influence income. Thus participation in multi-stakeholder IP activities highly influences collective marketing, which in turn impacts positively on smallholder farming households' income.

Influence of Collective Action Participation on Technical Efficiency among Smallholder Producers: A Case of Banana Farmers in Kisii and Nyamira, Kenya

“…The finding was consistent with similar findings of most of earlier studies which found age to be positively correlated to likelihood of group participation. According to [13,16,29,30], majority of younger population preferred to look for other sources of employment than engage in agricultural activities. From the result, it is clear that young people especially the male are yet to embrace agribusiness, or engage in agricultural activities as source of livelihood.…”

“…This is plausible because a farmer who owns a mobile phone can access information easily regarding scheduled meetings. According to [13,30], banana producers who own mobile phones are easy to be contacted and given information regarding group formation, and notification about group meetings. Finally, access to extension advice increased the probability of collective action participation by a household at 1% significant level.…”

“…The difference can be attributed to variations in managerial ability between the two farmer categories as well as benefits due to collective action. As field size gets larger, it requires more managerial skills and mechanization which most smallholder farmers cannot afford [30]. This prevents farmers from full utilization of the field capacity.…”

“…The results were consistent with what happens in the ground whereby the older farmers embrace collective action participation. Consequently, in addition to their accumulated experience over the years, they have better access to new farming technologies and innovations which they obtain from the groups [30]. Moreover, they are more likely to obtain production inputs and access credit facilities offered by the groups.…”

Do multi-stakeholder platforms work? : contributions of multi-stakeholder platforms to the performance of research for development interventions

“…Many of the studies investigating the contribution of MSPs to intervention performance are partial in terms of their coverage and methods. Quantitative studies have compared pre-and post-intervention data (Pamuk et al, 2014) and demonstrated both positive and negative contributions (Martey et al, 2014;Pamuk et al, 2014;Mango et al, 2017). However, they do not report on specific factors that contributed to that proclaimed positive or negative influence.…”