Governance and Land Reform in the Palm Oil Value Chain in the Philippines

Caroline Hambloch ()
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Caroline Hambloch: Department of Economics, SOAS University of London, UK

No 209, Working Papers from Department of Economics, SOAS University of London, UK

Abstract: The chain literature (Global Commodity Chains/Value Chains/Production Networks) have remained surprisingly silent about the role of land as a factor of production. I use fieldwork experience from the palm oil industry in Agusan del Sur, Philippines to illustrate the way in which the buyer-driven nature of the chain interacts with a major institutional change, namely the redistributive land reform, Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP). I argue that the CARP has not resulted in the desired redistribution of power from the landed to the landless, but reinforces the unequal distribution of power between plantation/milling companies and beneficiaries, producing economic and social downgrading trajectories for reform beneficiaries and farmworkers.

Keywords: agribusiness; flex crops; land reform; oil palm; Philippines; value chains (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O53 P14 P16 P48 Q15 Q33 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 30
Date: 2018-05
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-agr and nep-sea
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