Factors Influencing Farmers’ Vertical Collaboration in the Agri-Chain Guided by Leading Enterprises: A Study of the Table Grape Industry in China

Wen Li, Chenying Liu (), Qizhi Yang, Yulan You, Zhihang Zhuo and Xiaolin Zuo
Additional contact information
Wen Li: School of Management, Jiangsu University, Zhenjiang 212013, China
Chenying Liu: School of Management, Jiangsu University, Zhenjiang 212013, China
Qizhi Yang: School of Agricultural Equipment Engineering, Jiangsu University, Zhenjiang 212013, China
Yulan You: School of Management, Jiangsu University, Zhenjiang 212013, China
Zhihang Zhuo: School of Management, Jiangsu University, Zhenjiang 212013, China
Xiaolin Zuo: School of Management, Jiangsu University, Zhenjiang 212013, China

Agriculture, 2023, vol. 13, issue 10, 1-14

Abstract: Leading agricultural enterprises attracting farmers to participate in vertical collaboration within the industry chain can expedite the process of agricultural industrialization and help achieve rural revitalization. This study focuses on table grape growers in the Yangtze River Delta region of China as the research subjects. Instead of examining the impact of specific elements individually on farmers’ involvement in vertical collaboration within the industry chain, this study emphasizes the combination of multiple factors influencing farmers’ engagement. Employing a fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis and adopting a configurational perspective, this research investigates how six factors—growers’ age, ratio of sales income to household income, production scale, market distance, financial support, and technical support—combine to influence farmers’ participation in vertical collaboration within the industry chain. This study reveals that leading enterprises can indeed promote farmers’ participation in vertical cooperation within the agricultural chain, and four pathways are identified. Based on these findings, three configurations are summarized: risk-averse, resource-constrained, and burden-alleviating. Specific strategies and recommendations for targeting each of these configurations are proposed based on the findings, along with policy suggestions for regulating the six factors, both by the enterprises themselves and by the government.

Keywords: agricultural leading enterprise; farmers’ participation; agricultural industrialization; qualitative comparative analysis; table grape (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q1 Q10 Q11 Q12 Q13 Q14 Q15 Q16 Q17 Q18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/13/10/1915/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/13/10/1915/ (text/html)

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:gam:jagris:v:13:y:2023:i:10:p:1915-:d:1250847

Access Statistics for this article

Agriculture is currently edited by Ms. Leda Xuan

More articles in Agriculture from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().