| dc.description.abstract | Compliance with various food safety standards has continued to gain significance in the
international agri-food trade arena. Although considered voluntary, farmers involved in
agri-trade have to comply with safety standards to access international markets. One of
the private food safety standards that Kenyan horticultural farmers have to adopt to
remain in production is the GLOBALGAP (formerly EUREPGAP). Smallholder farmers
in Kenya can comply with the GLOBALGAP either through exporter-individual farmer
(private) partnerships or group-based institutional arrangements. Currently, there is no
evidence of factors driving farmers to choose any of these arrangements or any other
compliance mechanism. Moreover it is not known whether transaction costs have an
influence on the choice of compliance arrangements adopted by farmers. So far there is
no study that has quantified both visible and hidden transaction costs incurred due to
compliance with the food safety standards.
This study is an attempt to: describe the different compliance arrangements prevalent
among smallholder farmers; compare transaction costs across the different arrangements
and identify factors influencing the choice of compliance arrangement selected by
smallholder French bean producers in Kirinyaga South district. The district was selected
because not only does it have large numbers of smallholder farmers growing French
beans but also all the compliance arrangements are prevalent making it a good case study
area. The factors hypothesized to influence the choice of compliance arrangement with
the standards were age, gender, household size, education, social capital, income, farm
size, transaction costs, market access and availability of credit and extension as well as
inputs.
The study was conducted in three villages which have the highest production of French
beans in terms of area under the crop in Kirinyaga south district. Purposive sampling was
first employed to select the French bean producing villages, a census was then done with
the help of village elders and systematic random sampling was used to select 100 farmers
for the survey. The census was carried out to enable sampling from the population in
order to capture all compliance categories of farmers. Descriptive statistics and regression
analysis (binary logit) were used to analyze the data. Descriptive analysis and empirical
estimation was done using SPSS and STATA statistical packages. The findings show that
both visible and hidden transaction costs of compliance were higher for an individual
than a group farmer. The binary logit results show that recurrent transaction costs and
income had a positive influence on individual compliance. Distance to the market, age of
household head, numbers of groups the households belong to and household size
negatively influenced individual compliance. Hence markets should be brought close to
the farmers to reduce transaction costs. Policy should also aim at assisting farmers in
compliance e.g. through credit and input support. Smallholder farmers should be
encouraged to form groups in order to comply with the standards and to avoid their
exclusion from the market. An understanding of the above aspects is critical for both the
private and public sectors to inform the formulation of policies and strategies to aid the
French bean sector as it provides foreign exchange, employment and food to the Kenyan
economy. | en |
