High-value supply chains, food standards and poor farmers in developing countries: the case of vegetable exports from Senegal

This paper studies the welfare effects of high-value FFV exports from Senegal to the EU. We analyze how the structure of the export supply chain has changed in response to tightening food standards and investigate the impact for the local population. The study yields four important findings. First, we find that public and private food standards in the EU have lead to increased consolidation and increased vertical coordination in the FFV supply chain with a shift away from smallholder contract-based production to integrated estate production. Second, these structural changes have increased the participation of rural households, and especially poorer households, in the supply chains through wage employment on FFV estates. Third, we find that household participation in FFV export production, whether through contract-farming or through estate wage employment, generates significant income gains. Fourth, high-value FFV trade has a major impact on rural poverty-reduction and the increasing prevalence of food standards is even enhancing this impact.