Export Standards, Market Institutions and Smallholder Farmer Exclusion from Fresh Export Vegetable High Value Chains: Experiences from Ethiopia, Kenya and Zambia
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Date
2011-12Author
Okello, Julius Juma
Narrod, Clare A.
Roy, Devesh
Type
ArticleLanguage
enMetadata
Show full item recordAbstract
Many African countries are diversifying exports into fresh export vegetables, grown mainly by smallholder
farmers. However, markets for these new products have stringent safety standards. This paper examines the
green bean high value chain (HVC) for African exports to Europe to identify the critical points at which
exporters strictly enforce buyers’ quality requirements and the risk of exclusion of family farmers at these points.
It then discusses the strategies African countries have used to get-around these challenges and maintain
participation of some farmers. The paper identifies six critical control points but finds that farmers are most
threatened with exclusion from green bean HVC at the farm-level and collection-centre control points. To
overcome effects of these control points, study countries used two non-market strategies namely, collective
action and public-private partnerships. These findings imply that the market, if left on its own, could adopt
solutions that exclude smallholder farmers from export HVC
URI
http://dx.doi.org/10.5539/jas.v3n4p188http://erepository.uonbi.ac.ke:8080/xmlui/handle/123456789/13641
Publisher
Department of Agricultural Economics
Description
Journal Article