Collective action for smallholder market access

Helen Markelova, Ruth Meinzen-Dick, Jon Hellin and Stephan Dohrn

Food Policy, 2009, vol. 34, issue 1, 1-7

Abstract: The opportunity for smallholders to raise their incomes increasingly depends on their ability to compete in the market; yet there are many failures in rural markets in developing countries that make it difficult for them to do this. Understanding how collective action can help address the inefficiencies, coordination problems or barriers to market access is particularly important. This paper draws on the case studies in this special issue and on other literature to examine the conceptual issues and empirical evidence on the role of collective action institutions in improving market access for the rural poor. Applying insights from studies of collective action in natural resource management, the paper examines what conditions facilitate effective producer organizations for smallholders' market access, with special attention to the characteristics of user groups, institutional arrangements, types of products (staples, perishables and other commodities), markets (local, domestic and international), and external environment. The paper also identifies policies and interventions that facilitate collective action for market access among smallholders, and examines whether the public sector, private sector and/or civil society is best positioned to provide such interventions.

Keywords: Collective; action; Smallholder; Market; access; Public; and; private; sectors; High-value; crops (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (195)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306-9192(08)00073-0
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

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:eee:jfpoli:v:34:y:2009:i:1:p:1-7

Access Statistics for this article

Food Policy is currently edited by J. Kydd

More articles in Food Policy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().