Jos Bijman

Producer Organisations and Market Chains: Facilitating Trajectories of Change in Developing Countries

The role of producer organizations in market chains has received increasing attention in recent years, both from governments and donors. In order to lower transaction costs, markets demand that smallholder farmers operate in an organized manner. However, though the policy openings for support seem promising, smallholder market access through farmer-led economic organisations is not easy. This book presents various approaches to support producer organisations in terms of providing economic services to their members, with a focus on developing countries. Markets are increasingly fragmented in value chains that link farmers with specific processors, retailers and consumer segments. Several contributions in this book analyse these dynamics in specific value chains, such as the fair trade and organic agriculture and their potential to provide market outlets for smallholder farmers. The sixteen contributions in the book are organized in three sections: - organisational support for producer organisations; - value chain development with producer organisations; - changes in the institutional environment for producer organisations. This book is the result of a Dutch partnership between policy makers, researchers and practitioners designed to confront ideas with realities. Organized in a platform called Agri-ProFocus, members aim to provide more and better support to producer organisations in the South. Through so-called expert meetings, staff from donor organisations and knowledge centres, government officials, and business representatives, share their experiences and lessons learned. The experiences presented in this book are not recipes for instant success, but instead, highlight that support processes are often more fragile and slower moving than policy makers realise. This book is essential reading for scholars, practitioners and researchers interested in supporting and facilitating trajectories of change led by producer organisations in developing countries. Library holdings LEEUW ; 217-I/2007-008 ; Out on loan

From innovation to co-innovation? An exploration of African agrifood chains

Purpose – Building on recent advances in innovation research on developing country agriculture, this paper explores the concept of co-innovation, i.e. innovations that combine technological, organisational and institutional changes and that encompass different actors in and around the value chain. The purpose of this paper is to contribute to a further conceptualisation of co-innovation and show its usefulness for analysing innovation initiatives in agrifood chains. Design/methodology/approach – The paper combines two streams of literature (innovation systems and value chains) and is based on a review of the experiences with innovation in three different value chains in three African countries: potato in Ethiopia, pineapple in Benin and citrus in South Africa. Findings – Co-innovation is the combination of collaborative, complementary and coordinated innovation. “Collaborative” refers to the multi-actor character of the innovation process, where each actor brings in specific knowledge and resources. “Comp...

Old Oranges in New Boxes? Strategic Partnerships between Emerging Farmers and Agribusinesses in South Africa

Partnerships have recently gained increasing popularity in the development community and are thought to play a key role in facilitating market access for smallholder farmers. This is particularly evident in South Africa, where strategic partnerships between emerging farmers and agribusinesses have become important instruments by which the government may promote the transition of ‘emerging farmers’ into independent commercial farmers able to participate in global markets. This article studies six partnerships in the South African citrus sector to analyse to what extent they enhance the ‘commercialisation’ of emerging farmers. An ‘innovation system’ perspective is applied to understand how far partnerships actually challenge and change the status of emerging farmers. Our results indicate that partnerships succeed in increasing market access. A closer look at the partnership processes, however, reveals the conditions under which success is achieved and that partnerships may be less instrumental in helping emerging farmers become independent entrepreneurs. Thus, a partnership model characterised by export orientation and knowledge transfer from agribusinesses to emerging farmers is limited in its transformative potential, calling for policy-makers to move beyond a pragmatic approach to partnerships.

Cooperatives, Economic Democratization and Rural Development

Agricultural cooperatives and producer organizations are institutional innovations which have the potential to reduce poverty and improve food security. This book presents a raft of international case studies, from developing and transition countries, to analyse the internal and external challenges that these complex organizations face and the solutions that they have developed. The contributors provide a greater understanding of the transformation of traditional community organizations into modern farmer-owned businesses. They cover issues including: the impact on rural development and inclusiveness, the role of social capital, formal versus informal organizations, democratic participation and member relations, and their role in value chains.

Quality and innovation in food chains : lessons and insights from Africa

Quality improvement in food value chains offers both opportunities and challenges for farmers in Africa. This chapter introduces the key concepts that are used in the studies presented in this book. It also provides a short description of each of the chapters. Quality is an elusive concept. It has a different meaning for each of the different value chain actors involved in producing, processing, trading and consuming food products. Some of these quality preferences can easily be measured, others are much more difficult to detect. This has implications for monitoring and control, such as in quality assurance systems, but also for providing proper economic incentives for each of the value chain actors. Finally, it has implications for the alignment of quality preferences throughout the value chain. The latter is important because the opportunities for quality improvement can only be understood by analysing the chain as a whole and assessing the motives and capabilities of all chain actors. In this chapter we also explain the interdisciplinary perspective we take on studying quality improvement and innovation. As quality improvement is a type of innovation process, the literature on innovation processes and innovation systems can be used for better understanding the options and constraints for quality upgrading in food chains in developing countries. Based on the recognition that innovation processes involve multiple actors, at multiple levels and engaged in multiple activities, at the end of the chapter we present the co-innovation.

Transformation, inclusiveness and tensions of cooperatives: synthesis and further research

This synthesis chapter discusses the issues that are at the core of the academic discourse on the transformation of cooperatives in developing countries. The first is about inclusion or exclusion of particular groups of farmers. This issue has gained significance because cooperatives-as-businesses are more likely to be selective in allowing farmers to become members. The second issue relates to the inherent tensions in cooperatives and how these are affected by the transformation process. For instance, the classical trade-off between equity and efficiency seems to become more pronounced when cooperatives focus on economic functions and entrepreneurial activities. The third issue is about the institutional environment of the cooperative and what conditions determine the type and extent of support from governments, NGOs and other facilitating organizations. The chapter ends with suggestions for further research on cooperatives and POs in developing countries.