Impacts of smallholder participation in high-quality coffee markets: The Relationship Coffee Model

Juan Hernandez-Aguilera, Miguel Gomez, Amanda D. Rodewald, Ximena Rueda, Colleen Anunu, Ruth Bennett, Robert R. Schindelbeck and Harold M. van Es

No 205650, 2015 AAEA & WAEA Joint Annual Meeting, July 26-28, San Francisco, California from Agricultural and Applied Economics Association

Abstract: The Relationship Coffee Model (RCM) is an emerging business model in the coffee value chain that promotes long-term partnerships between coffee buyers and smallholder growers based on transparency, product quality and value sharing. However, to date, there are limited studies assessing outcomes for the smallholder growers participating in high-quality coffee value chains and specifically in models such as RCM. We developed a framework to examine how geography, environmental conditions, production practices and technology affect coffee quality, and consequently, grower’s ability to participate in RCM. In turn, we evaluated the impact of RCM participation on key environmental, socio-economic, and technological indicators. Using data collected from 265 Colombian smallholder growers, we examined relationships among socio-economic characteristics, soil quality indicators, coffee landscape characteristics, bird populations, and product quality scores. Our estimation based on propensity score matching indicated that RCM participants employ more environmentally-friendly resource management practices, have better understanding of the coffee business and are more optimistic about the future of the industry, relative to non-participants. Although farm gate prices did not significantly differ between the two groups, RCM participants had increased access to credit. Overall, the estimated impacts suggest that RCM contributes to integrate smallholder growers into global-coffee markets and generates socioenvironmental benefits.

Keywords: Agribusiness; Community/Rural/Urban Development; Crop Production/Industries; Farm Management; Food Security and Poverty; International Development; International Relations/Trade; Land Economics/Use; Marketing (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 55
Date: 2015-05-27
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-agr
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/205650/files/RCM_AAEA_2015_7_27_6255.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ags:aaea15:205650

DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.205650

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in 2015 AAEA & WAEA Joint Annual Meeting, July 26-28, San Francisco, California from Agricultural and Applied Economics Association Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by AgEcon Search ().