The Economics of Smallholder Organic Contract Farming in Tropical Africa

Simon Bolwig, Peter Gibbon and Sam Jones

World Development, 2009, vol. 37, issue 6, pages 1094-1104

Abstract: Summary 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.

Keywords: organic; farming; contract; farming; profitability; coffee; Africa; Uganda (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009

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Persistent link: http://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:wdevel:v:37:y:2009:i:6:p:1094-1104

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