Investigating the Association between Farmers’ Organizational Participation and Types of Agricultural Product Certifications: Empirical Evidence from a National Farm Households Survey in Taiwan

Mei-Yin Kuan, Szu-Yung Wang and Jiun-Hao Wang
Additional contact information
Mei-Yin Kuan: Department of Bio-Industry Communication and Development, National Taiwan University, Taipei 10617, Taiwan
Szu-Yung Wang: Department of International Business, National Taiwan University, Taipei 10617, Taiwan
Jiun-Hao Wang: Department of Bio-Industry Communication and Development, National Taiwan University, Taipei 10617, Taiwan

Sustainability, 2021, vol. 13, issue 16, 1-18

Abstract: Agricultural product certifications have proliferated due to the growing concerns in many countries over food safety and environmental sustainability. Encouraging farmers to self-organize was regarded as a useful tool to enhance the adoption of agricultural product certifications in Taiwan. However, previous studies solely focused on the association between membership in a production organization and single food certifications. Moreover, little is known of how different types of organizational participation could improve the adoption of agricultural product certifications. This study seeks to fill this knowledge gap by employing multinomial logistic regression model (MNL) to investigate factors affecting farmers’ decisions to participate in agricultural product certification. Special attention is paid to the role of different types of organizational participation in farmers’ choices for agricultural product certification. The study used a nationally representative sample of core farmers in Taiwan, and its results revealed evident differences in farmers’ organization types. For example, the farm operators who participate in agricultural cooperatives (co-ops) tend to use organic labels. In contrast, farm operators who participate in agricultural production and marketing groups (APMGs) tend to adopt the Traceable Agricultural Products (TAP) label. Moreover, age, education level, farming experience, farm labor, farm type, agricultural facilities, and regional location have a significant effect on farmers’ choices for participating in agricultural product certification across different models. The findings suggest that policymakers should consider these differences in the organizational operation of APMGs and co-ops and provide customized measures by promoting different types of agricultural product certifications.

Keywords: farmers’ organizations; agricultural product certifications; agricultural cooperatives; agricultural production and marketing group; Good Agricultural Practices (GAP); Traceable Agriculture Products (TAP) (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/16/9429/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/16/9429/ (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:jsusta:v:13:y:2021:i:16:p:9429-:d:619573

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

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