Abstract:The authors acknowledge research funding from the KU Leuven research fund under the DBOF scholarship program and the OT program. They thank seminar and conference participants in Leuven, Ithaca, The Hague, Gent and Brussels, for useful comments on earlier versions of the paper. They thank Betty Namazzi for support with coordination of the survey and Stefaan Dondeyne for help with GIS analysis. They thank the enumerators for their intense work in the mountains, as well as the village chiefs and household heads … Show more
“…However, as Bray and Neilson stressed in their meta‐analysis, “the quality, relevance, and effectiveness of training received by farmers is heavily dependent on the management capacity of producer organizations and other support structures, both from within the value chain and external to it” (2017, p. 220). This insight is confirmed by several studies: Giuliani et al (2017) and Mitiku et al (2017), for instance, highlighted the importance of cooperatives in supporting standard‐compliant behavior, Akoyi and Maertens (2018) credited a well‐organized contract farming scheme with supporting farmers in their objectives, and Rueda and Lambin (2013) noted the importance of the Colombian institutional extension system in disseminating and implementing VSS. It is thus important to empirically test to what extent capacity building can prevent decoupling in our Honduran sample, where institutions are relatively less present and less well organized. Hypothesis 4: The more access to capacity building through training a farmer has, the better the implementation results (less decoupling between standard and practice) found in the field. …”
Section: Theoretical Framework and Hypothesesmentioning
Voluntary Sustainability Standards have become a popular private governance framework for more sustainable agri‐food value chains. Yet, amid increasing concerns over the decoupling of standards and practices, it is still unclear to what extent agricultural standard requirements are implemented on the ground, and what may account for such differential implementation. This study employs a novel dataset of 659 Honduran coffee producers to examine this puzzle, focusing on the most widely used standards in the coffee sector (Common Code for the Coffee Community, Fairtrade, Fairtrade/organic, UTZ Certified, and Rainforest Alliance). It first presents results on implementation and behavioral change, based on matched groups of certified and non‐certified farmers, for eight representative social and environmental sustainability practices. Analyzing determinants of implementation success, it finds that the stringency of rules – if they are known by farmers – and the level of farm‐gate prices are significantly correlated with farmers’ performance and lower levels of decoupling across a majority of indicators. These results speak to the importance of supporting small‐scale actors’ awareness of and financial capacity to comply with proposed sustainability rules.
“…However, as Bray and Neilson stressed in their meta‐analysis, “the quality, relevance, and effectiveness of training received by farmers is heavily dependent on the management capacity of producer organizations and other support structures, both from within the value chain and external to it” (2017, p. 220). This insight is confirmed by several studies: Giuliani et al (2017) and Mitiku et al (2017), for instance, highlighted the importance of cooperatives in supporting standard‐compliant behavior, Akoyi and Maertens (2018) credited a well‐organized contract farming scheme with supporting farmers in their objectives, and Rueda and Lambin (2013) noted the importance of the Colombian institutional extension system in disseminating and implementing VSS. It is thus important to empirically test to what extent capacity building can prevent decoupling in our Honduran sample, where institutions are relatively less present and less well organized. Hypothesis 4: The more access to capacity building through training a farmer has, the better the implementation results (less decoupling between standard and practice) found in the field. …”
Section: Theoretical Framework and Hypothesesmentioning
Voluntary Sustainability Standards have become a popular private governance framework for more sustainable agri‐food value chains. Yet, amid increasing concerns over the decoupling of standards and practices, it is still unclear to what extent agricultural standard requirements are implemented on the ground, and what may account for such differential implementation. This study employs a novel dataset of 659 Honduran coffee producers to examine this puzzle, focusing on the most widely used standards in the coffee sector (Common Code for the Coffee Community, Fairtrade, Fairtrade/organic, UTZ Certified, and Rainforest Alliance). It first presents results on implementation and behavioral change, based on matched groups of certified and non‐certified farmers, for eight representative social and environmental sustainability practices. Analyzing determinants of implementation success, it finds that the stringency of rules – if they are known by farmers – and the level of farm‐gate prices are significantly correlated with farmers’ performance and lower levels of decoupling across a majority of indicators. These results speak to the importance of supporting small‐scale actors’ awareness of and financial capacity to comply with proposed sustainability rules.
“…Various economic and ecological impact studies focus on coffee in particular (e.g. Akoyi & Maertens, 2017;Chiputwa et al 2015;Dragussanu et al, 2014;Jena & Grote, 2017;Meemken et al (2019); Mendez et al, 2010;Mitiku et al, 2017Mitiku et al, & 2018Vanderhaegen et al, 2018;Van Rijsbergen et al, 2016). Yet, studies on the social implications of PSS are scantier, especially for Africa.…”
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.
“…The results are mixed. Whereas several studies suggest that sustainability standards contribute to higher prices and incomes for participating farmers (e.g., Bacon ; Jena et al ; Chiputwa and Qaim ; Meemken, Spielman, and Qaim ; Mitiku et al ; Tran and Goto ), other studies find very small or no effects at all (Valkila ; Beuchelt and Zeller ; Chiputwa, Spielman, and Qaim ; Ibanez and Blackman ; Akoyi and Maertens ). To some extent, differences in effects can be explained by the fact that the studies refer to different countries, to different years, and also partly to different standards.…”
mentioning
confidence: 98%
“…Existing studies on the effects of sustainability standards in developing countries differ substantially in terms of the methodologies used. Whereas much of the early work was rather qualitative and descriptive (e.g., Raynolds 2002;Raynolds, Murray, and Taylor 2004;Bacon 2005;Muradian and Pelupessy 2005;Valkila 2009), more recent studies tried to evaluate the net effects of standards through larger samples and more sophisticated tools of quantitative data analysis (e.g., Jena et al 2012;Ruben and Fort 2012;Becchetti, Castriota, and Michetti 2013;Chiputwa, Spielman, and Qaim 2015;Ibanez and Blackman 2016;Haggar et al 2017;Meemken, Spielman, and Qaim 2017;Akoyi and Maertens 2018;Vanderhaegen et al 2018). However, even these more recent studies did not sufficiently account for systematic differences between certified and noncertified farmers, which may lead to biased impact estimates.…”
mentioning
confidence: 99%
“…In that case, it is not possible to disentangle certification effects from possible cooperative effects, as cooperative membership and certification are perfectly correlated. Other studies compared farmers in a certified cooperative with farmers in a noncertified cooperative (van Rijsbergen et al 2016), or they compared observations from a few certified and noncertified cooperatives (Jena et al 2012;Ibanez and Blackman 2016;Haggar et al 2017;Mitiku et al 2017;Akoyi and Maertens 2018;Ssebunya et al 2019). Although this has clear advantages, bias through cooperative effects can still occur because cooperatives differ in terms of how they are endowed and how well they function, which may affect outcomes irrespective of certification.…”
Although many studies analyzed effects of sustainability standards—such as Fairtrade or Rainforest Alliance—on smallholder farmers in developing countries, most did not sufficiently account for systematic differences between certified and noncertified farmers. Certified farmers are typically organized in cooperatives. When sampling only from a small number of cooperatives, as previous studies did, it is not easy to disentangle certification effects from possible cooperative effects. Here, we address this shortcoming by randomly sampling from a large number of cooperatives, thus better capturing existing institutional heterogeneity. In particular, we collect and use data from cocoa farmers in Côte d'Ivoire who are organized in Fairtrade‐certified and noncertified cooperatives. Regression models with instrumental variables show that Fairtrade has positive and significant effects on cocoa yields, prices, and living standards. These effects remain significant also after controlling for cooperative characteristics, but the magnitude of the estimates changes. We draw two conclusions. First, in Côte d'Ivoire, Fairtrade certification benefits farmers economically. Second, and more generally, cooperative characteristics are jointly correlated with certification and relevant outcomes, which needs to be accounted for to avoid bias when evaluating the benefits of sustainability standards in the small farm sector.
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