Strengthening producer organizations to increase market access of smallholder farmers in Uganda
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Date
2021-09-22
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Cambridge University Press
Abstract
Smallholder agriculture in Sub-Saharan Africa is largely exposed to pervasive market
failures, translating into missed opportunities and sub-optimal economic behavior.
These failures can partly be traced to the importance of economies of scale in procuring
inputs and marketing produce, where smallholders face disproportionately high transaction costs. Producer organizations could help to lessen transaction costs; however, only
a few farmers in Uganda sell through them. We introduce two interventions aimed at promoting marketing via producer organizations: cash on delivery, and information on sales,
and analyze their impacts in an RCT design: We find that providing cash on delivery
increases the probability that a member chooses to sell through the group, and hence
the volumes bulked by each group. This increase in volumes appears to have enabled
groups to secure higher prices for their produce. No significant effect could be found
for providing information on sales.
Description
Keywords
Asymmetric information; cash constraints; rural producer organizations; smallholder farmers; Uganda
Citation
Hill, Ruth Vargas, Eduardo Maruyama, Markus Olapade, et al. 'Strengthening Producer Organizations to Increase Market Access of Smallholder Farmers in Uganda', Agricultural and Resource Economics Review, vol. 50/no. 3, (2021), pp. 436-464.