IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/agecon/v45y2014is1p39-52.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Smallholder cooperatives and agricultural performance in Rwanda: do organizational differences matter?

Author

Listed:
  • Ellen Verhofstadt
  • Miet Maertens

Abstract

Agricultural policies in Rwanda focus on agricultural intensification and increased market orientation of the smallholder farm sector. Cooperatives are seen as key vehicles in this, but little is known about their effectiveness to achieve these goals. In this article, we analyze the impact of cooperative membership on the agricultural performance of rural households in Rwanda. We use cross-sectional survey data, collected in 2012, to analyze the impact of cooperative membership on different agricultural performance indicators, including indicators on agricultural intensification, market orientation, farm revenue, and income. We use several econometric techniques to deal with potential selection bias in estimating the impact of cooperative membership, including a proxy variable method based on a willingness to pay measure and propensity score matching methods. We find that cooperative membership in general has a positive impact on farm performance but these effects are driven by specific types of cooperatives.

Suggested Citation

  • Ellen Verhofstadt & Miet Maertens, 2014. "Smallholder cooperatives and agricultural performance in Rwanda: do organizational differences matter?," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 45(S1), pages 39-52, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:agecon:v:45:y:2014:i:s1:p:39-52
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1111/agec.12128
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Whittington, Dale, 1998. "Administering contingent valuation surveys in developing countries," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 26(1), pages 21-30, January.
    2. Hazell, Peter & Poulton, Colin & Wiggins, Steve & Dorward, Andrew, 2010. "The Future of Small Farms: Trajectories and Policy Priorities," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 38(10), pages 1349-1361, October.
    3. Onwujekwe, Obinna & Nwagbo, Douglas, 2002. "Investigating starting-point bias: a survey of willingness to pay for insecticide-treated nets," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 55(12), pages 2121-2130, December.
    4. Andrea Ichino & Fabrizia Mealli & Tommaso Nannicini, 2008. "From temporary help jobs to permanent employment: what can we learn from matching estimators and their sensitivity?," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 23(3), pages 305-327.
    5. Deininger, Klaus, 1995. "Collective agricultural production: A solution for transition economies?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 23(8), pages 1317-1334, August.
    6. Nabahungu, N.L. & Visser, S.M., 2011. "Contribution of wetland agriculture to farmers' livelihood in Rwanda," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 71(C), pages 4-12.
    7. Dong, Hengjin & Kouyate, Bocar & Cairns, John & Sauerborn, Rainer, 2003. "A comparison of the reliability of the take-it-or-leave-it and the bidding game approaches to estimating willingness-to-pay in a rural population in West Africa," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 56(10), pages 2181-2189, May.
    8. Marco Caliendo & Sabine Kopeinig, 2008. "Some Practical Guidance For The Implementation Of Propensity Score Matching," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 22(1), pages 31-72, February.
    9. Ito, Junichi & Bao, Zongshun & Su, Qun, 2012. "Distributional effects of agricultural cooperatives in China: Exclusion of smallholders and potential gains on participation," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 37(6), pages 700-709.
    10. Tanguy Bernard & Alemayehu Seyoum Taffesse & Eleni Gabre‐Madhin, 2008. "Impact of cooperatives on smallholders' commercialization behavior: evidence from Ethiopia," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 39(2), pages 147-161, September.
    11. Stephan J. Goetz, 1992. "A Selectivity Model of Household Food Marketing Behavior in Sub-Saharan Africa," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 74(2), pages 444-452.
    12. Rao, Elizaphan J.O. & Qaim, Matin, 2011. "Supermarkets, Farm Household Income, and Poverty: Insights from Kenya," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 39(5), pages 784-796, May.
    13. Bernard, Tanguy & Spielman, David J., 2009. "Reaching the rural poor through rural producer organizations? A study of agricultural marketing cooperatives in Ethiopia," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 34(1), pages 60-69, February.
    14. Markelova, Helen & Meinzen-Dick, Ruth & Hellin, Jon & Dohrn, Stephan, 2009. "Collective action for smallholder market access," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 34(1), pages 1-7, February.
    15. Holloway, Garth & Nicholson, Charles & Delgado, Chris & Staal, Steve & Ehui, Simeon, 2000. "Agroindustrialization through institutional innovation: Transaction costs, cooperatives and milk-market development in the east-African highlands," Agricultural Economics, Blackwell, vol. 23(3), pages 279-288, September.
    16. James J. Heckman & Hidehiko Ichimura & Petra E. Todd, 1997. "Matching As An Econometric Evaluation Estimator: Evidence from Evaluating a Job Training Programme," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 64(4), pages 605-654.
    17. Barham, James & Chitemi, Clarence, 2009. "Collective action initiatives to improve marketing performance: Lessons from farmer groups in Tanzania," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 34(1), pages 53-59, February.
    18. Abebaw, Degnet & Haile, Mekbib G., 2013. "The impact of cooperatives on agricultural technology adoption: Empirical evidence from Ethiopia," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(C), pages 82-91.
    19. Coulter, Jonathan, 2007. "Farmer groups enterprises and the marketing of staple food commodities in Africa," CAPRi working papers 72, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    20. Miet Maertens & Liesbeth Colen & Johan F. M. Swinnen, 2011. "Globalisation and poverty in Senegal: a worst case scenario?," European Review of Agricultural Economics, Oxford University Press and the European Agricultural and Applied Economics Publications Foundation, vol. 38(1), pages 31-54, March.
    21. Staal, Steven & Delgado, Christopher & Nicholson, Charles, 1997. "Smallholder dairying under transactions costs in East Africa," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 25(5), pages 779-794, May.
    22. Rajeev H. Dehejia & Sadek Wahba, 2002. "Propensity Score-Matching Methods For Nonexperimental Causal Studies," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 84(1), pages 151-161, February.
    23. Bellemare, Marc F., 2012. "As You Sow, So Shall You Reap: The Welfare Impacts of Contract Farming," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 40(7), pages 1418-1434.
    24. Tanguy Bernard & Alemayehu Seyoum Taffesse, 2012. "Returns to Scope? Smallholders' Commercialisation through Multipurpose Cooperatives in Ethiopia," Journal of African Economies, Centre for the Study of African Economies, vol. 21(3), pages 440-464, June.
    25. Michael E. Sykuta & Michael L. Cook, 2001. "A New Institutional Economics Approach to Contracts and Cooperatives," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 83(5), pages 1273-1279.
    26. Johan F. M. Swinnen & Miet Maertens, 2007. "Globalization, privatization, and vertical coordination in food value chains in developing and transition countries," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 37(s1), pages 89-102, December.
    27. Guido W. Imbens, 2004. "Nonparametric Estimation of Average Treatment Effects Under Exogeneity: A Review," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 86(1), pages 4-29, February.
    28. Bernard, Tanguy & Gabre-Madhin, Eleni Z. & Taffesse, Alemayehu Seyoum, 2008. "Heterogeneous Impacts Of Cooperatives On Smallholders’ Commercialization Behavior: Evidence From Ethiopia," 2007 Second International Conference, August 20-22, 2007, Accra, Ghana 52161, African Association of Agricultural Economists (AAAE).
    29. Elisabeth Fischer & Matin Qaim, 2014. "Smallholder Farmers and Collective Action: What Determines the Intensity of Participation?," Journal of Agricultural Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 65(3), pages 683-702, September.
    30. Frew, Emma J. & Wolstenholme, Jane L. & Whynes, David K., 2004. "Comparing willingness-to-pay: bidding game format versus open-ended and payment scale formats," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 68(3), pages 289-298, June.
    31. Meike Wollni & Manfred Zeller, 2007. "Do farmers benefit from participating in specialty markets and cooperatives? The case of coffee marketing in Costa Rica1," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 37(2‐3), pages 243-248, September.
    32. World Bank, 2010. "Budgeting for Effectiveness in Rwanda : From Reconstruction to Reform," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 5953, December.
    33. Shiferaw, Bekele A. & Obare, Gideon A. & Geoffrey, Muricho & Silim, Said, 2009. "Leveraging institutions for collective action to improve markets for smallholder producers in less-favored areas," African Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, African Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 3(1), pages 1-18, March.
    34. Alene, Arega D. & Manyong, V.M. & Omanya, G. & Mignouna, H.D. & Bokanga, M. & Odhiambo, G., 2008. "Smallholder market participation under transactions costs: Maize supply and fertilizer demand in Kenya," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 33(4), pages 318-328, August.
    35. Hellin, Jon & Lundy, Mark & Meijer, Madelon, 2009. "Farmer organization, collective action and market access in Meso-America," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 34(1), pages 16-22, February.
    36. Anneleen Vandeplas & Bart Minten & Johan Swinnen, 2013. "Multinationals vs. Cooperatives: The Income and Efficiency Effects of Supply Chain Governance in India," Journal of Agricultural Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 64(1), pages 217-244, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Verhofstadt, Ellen & Maertens, Miet, 2013. "Cooperative membership and agricultural performance: Evidence from Rwanda," Working Papers 157389, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Centre for Agricultural and Food Economics.
    2. Biggeri, Mario & Burchi, Francesco & Ciani, Federico & Herrmann, Raoul, 2018. "Linking small-scale farmers to the durum wheat value chain in Ethiopia: Assessing the effects on production and wellbeing," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 79(C), pages 77-91.
    3. Shumeta, Zekarias & D'Haese, Marijke, 2016. "Do coffee cooperatives benefit farmers? An exploration of heterogeneous impact of coffee cooperative membership in Southwest Ethiopia," International Food and Agribusiness Management Review, International Food and Agribusiness Management Association, vol. 19(4), August.
    4. Yuanyuan Peng & H. Holly Wang & Yueshu Zhou, 2022. "Can cooperatives help commercial farms to access credit in China? Evidence from Jiangsu Province," Canadian Journal of Agricultural Economics/Revue canadienne d'agroeconomie, Canadian Agricultural Economics Society/Societe canadienne d'agroeconomie, vol. 70(4), pages 325-349, December.
    5. Jan Falkowski & Pavel Ciaian, 2016. "Factors Supporting the Development of Producer Organizations and their Impacts in the Light of Ongoing Changes in Food Supply Chains: A Literature Review," JRC Research Reports JRC101617, Joint Research Centre.
    6. Fischer, Elisabeth & Qaim, Matin, 2012. "Linking Smallholders to Markets: Determinants and Impacts of Farmer Collective Action in Kenya," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 40(6), pages 1255-1268.
    7. Michalek, Jerzy & Ciaian, Pavel & Pokrivcak, Jan, 2018. "The impact of producer organizations on farm performance: The case study of large farms from Slovakia☆," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 75(C), pages 80-92.
    8. Adjin, K. Christophe & Goundan, Anatole & Henning, Christian H. C. A. & Sarr, Saer, 2020. "Estimating the impact of agricultural cooperatives in Senegal: Propensity score matching and endogenous switching regression analysis," Working Papers of Agricultural Policy WP2020-10, University of Kiel, Department of Agricultural Economics, Chair of Agricultural Policy.
    9. Jerzy Michalek & Pavel Ciaian & Jan Pokrivcak, 2018. "The impact of producer organisations on farm performance: A case study of large farms in Slovakia," JRC Research Reports JRC108059, Joint Research Centre.
    10. Margitta Minah, 2022. "What is the influence of government programs on farmer organizations and their impacts? Evidence from Zambia," Annals of Public and Cooperative Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 93(1), pages 29-53, March.
    11. Blekking, Jordan & Gatti, Nicolas & Waldman, Kurt & Evans, Tom & Baylis, Kathy, 2021. "The benefits and limitations of agricultural input cooperatives in Zambia," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 146(C).
    12. Maertens, Miet & Vande Velde, Katrien, 2017. "Contract-farming in Staple Food Chains: The Case of Rice in Benin," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 95(C), pages 73-87.
    13. Ma, Wanglin & Abdulai, Awudu, 2016. "Does cooperative membership improve household welfare? Evidence from apple farmers in China," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 94-102.
    14. Huma Neupane & Krishna P. Paudel & Mandeep Adhikari & Qinying He, 2022. "Impact of cooperative membership on production efficiency of smallholder goat farmers in Nepal," Annals of Public and Cooperative Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 93(2), pages 337-356, June.
    15. Tray, Bunthan & Garnevska, Elena & Shadbolt, Nicola, 2021. "Linking smallholder producers to high-value markets through vegetable producer cooperatives in Cambodia," International Food and Agribusiness Management Review, International Food and Agribusiness Management Association, vol. 24(6), February.
    16. Bhanot, Disha & Kathuria, Vinish & Das, Debabrata, 2021. "Can institutional innovations in agri-marketing channels alleviate distress selling? Evidence from India," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 137(C).
    17. Jasper GRASHUIS & Ye SU, 2019. "A Review Of The Empirical Literature On Farmer Cooperatives: Performance, Ownership And Governance, Finance, And Member Attitude," Annals of Public and Cooperative Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 90(1), pages 77-102, March.
    18. Herbert, Ainembabazi & Asten, Piet & Vanlauwe, Bernard & Ouma, Emily & Blomme, Guy & Birachi, Eliud & Manyong, Victor M. & Macharia, Ibrahim, 2015. "Improving the adoption of agricultural technologies and farm performance through farmer groups: Evidence from the Great Lakes Region of Africa," 2015 Conference, August 9-14, 2015, Milan, Italy 210939, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    19. Biggeri, Mario & Carraro, Alessandro & Ciani, Federico & Romano, Donato, 2022. "Disentangling the impact of a multiple-component project on SDG dimensions: The case of durum wheat value chain development in Oromia (Ethiopia)," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 153(C).
    20. Gezahegn, Tafesse & Van Passel, Steven & Berhanu, Tekeste & D'Haese, Marijke & Maertens, Miet, 2020. "Structural and Institutional Heterogeneity among Agricultural Cooperatives in Ethiopia: Does it Matter for Farmers’ Welfare?," Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Western Agricultural Economics Association, vol. 46(2), August.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:agecon:v:45:y:2014:i:s1:p:39-52. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/iaaeeea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.