Banana Value Chains in Central Africa: Constraints and Opportunities

Smallholder farmers in developing countries need to improve their position in food value chains in order to improve their margins and as a strategy for coping with agricultural food price volatility through innovations within the chains. Value chain mappings and gross margin analysis were employed to assess constraints and opportunities for existing value chains for bananas in Central Africa using market survey data. The results showed weak linkages within the banana value chains with poor integration of value chain actors and minimal involvement with regional markets and high-value domestic chains such as supermarkets. Value addition in terms of agroprocessing was carried out at small scale levels using rudimentary techniques limiting the final product to low value markets. Transaction costs comprising transport, handling and storage comprised a high proportion of cost items in the value chain. Generally, the findings suggest that efforts aimed at strengthening linkages within the value chains, collective marketing, penetration into high-value chains and improved processing techniques may provide a potential avenue for enhancing banana value chains in Central Africa.banana value chains, smallholder farmers, Central Africa, collective action, Crop Production/Industries,

Contribution of Economics to Design of Sustainable Cattle Breeding Programs in Eastern Africa: A Choice Experiment Approach

Although livestock forms a very important component of the livelihoods of rural populations of developing countries, productivity remains very low. Livestock keepers are beset by various constraints. In sub-Saharan Africa, cattle are exposed to a number of tropical diseases and other environmental stresses. Breed improvement programs provides key entry points for increasing productivity in cattle populations, especially those plagued by animal diseases. However, breed improvement programs have tended to focus on single, market-driven production traits in isolation of broader livestock system functions. This potentially leads to genotypes that are not well adapted to the environment and not suitable for performing the multiple roles of cattle in developing countries. In order to design a sustainable breed improvement program, farmer preferences for cattle traits need to be integrated into the breeding objective. To explore preferences for cattle traits by cattle keepers, data are used from a choice experiment household survey from a sample of 507 cattle keeping households in trypanosomosis challenge areas in Kenya and Ethiopia. A multinomial logit and mixed logit models are applied to estimate the economic values of preferred cattle traits. The results show existence of preference heterogeneity for cattle traits based on cattle production systems. Further, the results suggest that important traits in developing breed improvement programs should include trypanotolerance, fitness to traction, drought tolerance and fecundity, drawing implications on conservation of breeds which possess these traits.Choice experiment, Cattle production system, Trait preferences, Trypanotolerance, Livestock Production/Industries, D12, D60, C35,

CATTLE AS ASSETS: ASSESSMENT OF NON-MARKET BENEFITS FROM CATTLE IN SMALLHOLDER KENYAN CROP-LIVESTOCK SYSTEMS

This paper uses data from a survey of two hundred and fifty cattle households in three cattle keeping systems; intensive, semi-intensive and extensive systems to estimate the value of non-market, socio-economic benefits of cattle in Kenya. These benefits of cattle keeping are of special importance in developing countries, where financial markets function poorly and opportunities for risk management through formal insurance generally absent. However, when estimating the total contribution of livestock, these non-market functions are often ignored since they are difficult to value, yet they may contribute to a better understanding of livestock production systems. The use of contingent valuation method is employed in this study to elicit these non-market values. Econometric estimations are then used to assess the factors influencing the non-market benefits function. The results indicate that these benefits are highly valued by cattle keepers and comprise approximately 20% of the animal's total value across the three systems. They are influenced by various production system and household related factors. Implications for policy are drawn.Livestock Production/Industries, QQ112, QQ118, DD223,

"Meet the farmer" : Kleinbauern, Regionalentwicklung und der neue globale Agrarmarkt

Lebensmittelkrisen wie BSE, Schweinepest, Vogelgrippe und der »Gammelfleischskandal« haben das Vertrauen der Verbraucher in den Agrarmarkt erschüttert. Deshalb verwenden Produzenten und Einzelhändler heute mehr Anstrengungen als jemals zuvor darauf, der verunsichernden Anonymität der global organisierten Produktion durch die Herstellung sozialer Nähe entgegenzuwirken. So suggerieren Herkunftszertifi kate für Regionalprodukte sowie eine schnell steigende Zahl von Hygiene-, Sozial- und Umweltstandards Verlässlichkeit aufgrund von geringen räumlichen Distanzen und unabhängiger Kontrolle, während Initiativen wie »Caretrace: Meet the Farmer« dadurch Vertrauen schaffen sollen, dass sich der Konsument im Internet über den individuellen Produzenten informieren kann. Doch die Folgen dieser Umbrüche für Produktionsweisen und Anbauregionen sind bislang nur wenig bekannt

What are the Key Constraints in Technical Efficiency of Smallholder Farmers in Africa? Empirical Evidence from Kenya

The idea that smallholder farmers are reasonably efficient has triggered much debate in Sub-Saharan Africa. Indeed, efficiency of smallholder farmers has implications for choice of development strategy; reason being that Sub-Saharan countries derive over 60% of their livelihoods from smallholder agriculture and rural economic activities. This paper evaluates factors that promote production efficiency among smallholder farmers in Kenya as avenues for policy intervention. A production frontier function was fitted to a random sample derived from a survey carried in 2007. Results show that all conventional inputs had the expected significance. On the inefficiency indicators, ownership to farmland, attendance to agricultural workshops, access to credit and participation in self-help groups significantly reduced inefficiency, while age, market distance, female gender and formal education increased inefficiency. Our findings suggest that within the available technologies, farmers can improve on their productivity if they nurture teamwork as in groups where labour is shared. Besides, better roads would reduce transaction costs and promote higher returns, and training in agriculture would boost efficient resources use for better performance. Therefore, there exists opportunity to improve efficiency in production given existing farm technologies.Technical Efficiency, Smallholder Farmers, Africa, Productivity Analysis,