Sugarcane outgrowers in Ethiopia: ’forced’ to remain poor?

TY - UNPB

T1 - Sugarcane outgrowers in Ethiopia

T2 - ’forced’ to remain poor?

AU - Assefa Wendimu, Mengistu

AU - Henningsen, Arne

AU - Gibbon, Peter

PY - 2015

Y1 - 2015

N2 - Contract farming is often seen as a panacea to many of the challenges faced by agricultural production in developing countries. Given the large heterogeneity of contract farming arrangements, it is debatable whether all kinds of contract farming arrangements offer benefits to participating smallholders. We apply matching methods to analyze the effects of a public sugarcane outgrower scheme in Ethiopia. Participation in the outgrower scheme significantly reduces the income and asset stocks of outgrowers who contributed irrigated land to the outgrower scheme, while the effect was insignificant for outgrowers who contributed rain-fed land. We provide several explanations and discuss policy implications.

AB - Contract farming is often seen as a panacea to many of the challenges faced by agricultural production in developing countries. Given the large heterogeneity of contract farming arrangements, it is debatable whether all kinds of contract farming arrangements offer benefits to participating smallholders. We apply matching methods to analyze the effects of a public sugarcane outgrower scheme in Ethiopia. Participation in the outgrower scheme significantly reduces the income and asset stocks of outgrowers who contributed irrigated land to the outgrower scheme, while the effect was insignificant for outgrowers who contributed rain-fed land. We provide several explanations and discuss policy implications.

M3 - Working paper

T3 - IFRO Working Paper

BT - Sugarcane outgrowers in Ethiopia

PB - Department of Food and Resource Economics, University of Copenhagen

CY - Frederiksberg

ER -