The Economics of Smallholder Organic Contract Farming in Tropical Africa

TY - JOUR

T1 - The Economics of Smallholder Organic Contract Farming in Tropical Africa

AU - Bolwig, Simon

AU - Gibbon, Peter

AU - Jones, Edward Samuel

PY - 2009

Y1 - 2009

N2 - The paper examines the revenue effects of certified organic contract farming for smallholders and of adoption of organic agricultural farming methods in a tropical African context. The comparison in both cases is with farming systems that are "organic by default." Survey data from a large organic coffee contract farming scheme in Uganda are reported and analyzed using a standard OLS regression and a full information maximum likelihood (FIML) estimate of the Heckman selection model. The analysis finds that, controlling for a range of factors, there are positive revenue effects both from participation in the scheme and, more modestly, from applying organic farming techniques.

AB - The paper examines the revenue effects of certified organic contract farming for smallholders and of adoption of organic agricultural farming methods in a tropical African context. The comparison in both cases is with farming systems that are "organic by default." Survey data from a large organic coffee contract farming scheme in Uganda are reported and analyzed using a standard OLS regression and a full information maximum likelihood (FIML) estimate of the Heckman selection model. The analysis finds that, controlling for a range of factors, there are positive revenue effects both from participation in the scheme and, more modestly, from applying organic farming techniques.

KW - Faculty of Social Sciences

KW - Afrika

KW - organic farming

KW - profitability

KW - coffe

KW - Uganda

KW - Africa

U2 - 10.1016/j.worlddev.2008.09.012

DO - 10.1016/j.worlddev.2008.09.012

M3 - Journal article

SN - 0305-750X

VL - 37

SP - 1094

EP - 1104

JO - World Development

JF - World Development

IS - 6

ER -