15 pages, Food security and agricultural-led industrialisation are pivotal development objectives in Ethiopia. One of the main challenges this country faces is increasing agricultural productivity by integrating smallholder farmers into a high-value agricultural commodity supply chain. This paper examines an integrated project—the Agricultural Value Chains Project in Oromia (AVCPO)—that aims to improve the livelihoods of smallholders in the Bale Zone by involving them in the production of high-quality durum wheat and linking them to the pasta industry via farmers’ cooperatives. Using primary data collected in 2014 and retrospective information, this paper investigates the AVCPO’s effects on the quantity of cereal production, the share of cereals that have been sold through cooperatives, food security, and education. In order to account for potential violations of the exclusion restriction assumption, an instrumental variable approach is applied, together with three additional estimation strategies.
The results suggest that the project has had a large and positive effect on gross and net values of cereal production per hectare, as well as on the share of production sold to pasta makers through cooperatives. These benefits accrue equally to land-rich and land-poor farmers. Furthermore, our analysis suggests that the AVCPO has improved educational outcomes and reduced food insecurity, without affecting crop rotation practices. Overall, our findings point to the effectiveness of the project. Before replicating or scaling up this intervention, however, it is necessary to understand how to better involve poorer farmers and which adjustments are needed if the areas selected have a lower potential than Bale Zone.
25 pages., Online via UI e-subscription, Researchers evaluated the role of media through qualitative feedback from smallholder farmers identified by Community Markets for Conservation through radio programming efforts involving sustainable agriculture. Results demonstrated the centrality of the radio programming alongside other forms of communication such as extension and farmer-to-farmer communication, as well as written and visual communication.
Hidebrand, Peter E. (author / Department of Food and Resource Economics, University of Florida) and Department of Food and Resource Economics, University of Florida
Format:
Book chapter
Publication Date:
1982
Published:
USA
Location:
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 65 Document Number: C02455
Notes:
In: Shaner, W.W.; Philipp, P.F.; Schmehl, W.R., eds. Readings in farming systems research and development. Boulder, CO : Westview Press, 1982. p. 100-109 (Reprinted from Agricultural Administration, Vol. 8, 1981)
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Document Number: C37106
Notes:
See C37105 for original, Pages 17-30 in Alessandro Bonanno, Hans Bakker, Raymond Jussaume, Yoshio Kawamura and Mark Shucksmith (eds.), From community to consumption: new and classical themes in rural sociological research. Research in Rural Sociology and Development, Volume 16. Emerald Group Publishing Ltd., Bingley, U.K. 275 pages.
Summarizes Kenneth Kusterer, "Small farmer perspectives on development," a contract report to the U.S. Agency for International Development, February 1987. "Small farmers themselves…want first and foremost to escape being small farmers."
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 196 Document Number: D08087
Notes:
John L. Woods Collection, RAPA Publication.1988-2. Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), Bangkok, Thailand. 51 pages.
