IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ags/gagfdp/113508.html

Farmer Participation in Supermarket Channels, Production Technology, and Efficiency: The Case of Vegetables in Kenya

Author

Listed:
  • Rao, Elizaphan J.O.
  • Brümmer, Bernhard
  • Qaim, Matin

Abstract

Supermarkets are gaining ground in the agri-food systems of many developing countries. While recent research has analyzed income effects in the small farm sector, impacts on productivity and efficiency have hardly been studied. We use a meta-frontier approach and combine this with propensity score matching to estimate treatment effects among vegetable farmers in Kenya. Participation in supermarket channels increases farm productivity in terms of meta-technology ratios by 45%. We also find positive and significant impacts on technical efficiency and scale efficiency. Supermarket expansion therefore presents opportunities for agricultural growth in the small farm sector, which is crucial for poverty reduction in Africa.

Suggested Citation

  • Rao, Elizaphan J.O. & Brümmer, Bernhard & Qaim, Matin, 2011. "Farmer Participation in Supermarket Channels, Production Technology, and Efficiency: The Case of Vegetables in Kenya," GlobalFood Discussion Papers 113508, Georg-August-Universitaet Goettingen, GlobalFood, Department of Agricultural Economics and Rural Development.
    • Handle: RePEc:ags:gagfdp:113508
    DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.113508
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/113508/files/GlobalFood_DP6.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.22004/ag.econ.113508?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jayne, T. S. & Yamano, Takashi & Weber, Michael T. & Tschirley, David & Benfica, Rui & Chapoto, Antony & Zulu, Ballard, 2003. "Smallholder income and land distribution in Africa: implications for poverty reduction strategies," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 28(3), pages 253-275, June.
    2. Michelson, Hope & Reardon, Thomas & Perez, Francisco, 2012. "Small Farmers and Big Retail: Trade-offs of Supplying Supermarkets in Nicaragua," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 40(2), pages 342-354.
    3. repec:bla:devpol:v:22:y:2004:i:6:p:669-699 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Hujer, Reinhard & Caliendo, Marco & Thomsen, Stephan L., 2004. "New evidence on the effects of job creation schemes in Germany--a matching approach with threefold heterogeneity," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 58(4), pages 257-302, December.
    5. Forsund, Finn R & Hjalmarsson, Lennart, 1979. "Generalised Farrell Measures of Efficiency: An Application to Milk Processing in Swedish Dairy Plants," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 89(354), pages 294-315, June.
    6. George Battese & D. Rao & Christopher O'Donnell, 2004. "A Metafrontier Production Function for Estimation of Technical Efficiencies and Technology Gaps for Firms Operating Under Different Technologies," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 21(1), pages 91-103, January.
    7. Neven, David & Odera, Michael Makokha & Reardon, Thomas & Wang, Honglin, 2009. "Kenyan Supermarkets, Emerging Middle-Class Horticultural Farmers, and Employment Impacts on the Rural Poor," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 37(11), pages 1802-1811, November.
    8. Daniel Solís & Boris E. Bravo-Ureta & Ricardo E. Quiroga, 2007. "Soil conservation and technical efficiency among hillside farmers in Central America: a switching regression model ," Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, vol. 51(4), pages 491-510, December.
    9. A. Smith, Jeffrey & E. Todd, Petra, 2005. "Does matching overcome LaLonde's critique of nonexperimental estimators?," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 125(1-2), pages 305-353.
    10. Fernando Balsevich & Julio A. Berdegué & Luis Flores & Denise Mainville & Thomas Reardon, 2003. "Supermarkets and Produce Quality and Safety Standards in Latin America," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 85(5), pages 1147-1154.
    11. Hung-jen Wang & Peter Schmidt, 2002. "One-Step and Two-Step Estimation of the Effects of Exogenous Variables on Technical Efficiency Levels," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 18(2), pages 129-144, September.
    12. Carlos D. Mayen & Joseph V. Balagtas & Corinne E. Alexander, 2010. "Technology Adoption and Technical Efficiency: Organic and Conventional Dairy Farms in the United States," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 92(1), pages 181-195.
    13. Ricardo Hernández & Thomas Reardon & Julio Berdegué, 2007. "Supermarkets, wholesalers, and tomato growers in Guatemala," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 36(3), pages 281-290, May.
    14. Christin Schipmann & Matin Qaim, 2010. "Spillovers from modern supply chains to traditional markets: product innovation and adoption by smallholders," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 41(3‐4), pages 361-371, May.
    15. Thomas Reardon & C. Peter Timmer & Christopher B. Barrett & Julio Berdegué, 2003. "The Rise of Supermarkets in Africa, Asia, and Latin America," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 85(5), pages 1140-1146.
    16. Maertens, Miet & Swinnen, Johan F.M., 2009. "Trade, Standards, and Poverty: Evidence from Senegal," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 37(1), pages 161-178, January.
    17. Sherlund, Shane M. & Barrett, Christopher B. & Adesina, Akinwumi A., 2002. "Smallholder technical efficiency controlling for environmental production conditions," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(1), pages 85-101, October.
    18. James Heckman & Salvador Navarro-Lozano, 2004. "Using Matching, Instrumental Variables, and Control Functions to Estimate Economic Choice Models," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 86(1), pages 30-57, February.
    19. William E. Foster & Gordon C. Rausser, 1991. "Farmer Behavior under Risk of Failure," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 73(2), pages 276-288.
    20. David Boselie & Spencer Henson & Dave Weatherspoon, 2003. "Supermarket Procurement Practices in Developing Countries: Redefining the Roles of the Public and Private Sectors," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 85(5), pages 1155-1161.
    21. Minten, Bart & Randrianarison, Lalaina & Swinnen, Johan F.M., 2009. "Global Retail Chains and Poor Farmers: Evidence from Madagascar," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 37(11), pages 1728-1741, November.
    22. 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.
    23. 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.
    24. repec:lic:licosd:21708 is not listed on IDEAS
    25. Julius J. Okello & Scott M. Swinton, 2007. "Compliance with International Food Safety Standards in Kenya's Green Bean Industry: Comparison of a Small- and a Large-scale Farm Producing for Export," Review of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 29(2), pages 269-285.
    26. James J. Heckman, 1976. "The Common Structure of Statistical Models of Truncation, Sample Selection and Limited Dependent Variables and a Simple Estimator for Such Models," NBER Chapters, in: Annals of Economic and Social Measurement, Volume 5, number 4, pages 475-492, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    27. repec:bla:devpol:v:21:y:2003:i::p:333-355 is not listed on IDEAS
    28. Reardon, Thomas & Barrett, Christopher B. & Berdegué, Julio A. & Swinnen, Johan F.M., 2009. "Agrifood Industry Transformation and Small Farmers in Developing Countries," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 37(11), pages 1717-1727, November.
    29. William E. Foster & Gordon C. Rausser, 1991. "Farmer Behavior under Risk of Failure," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 73(2), pages 276-288.
    30. 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.
    31. Christpher B. Barrett, 1997. "How credible are estimates of peasant allocative scale, or scope efficiency? A commentary," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 9(2), pages 221-229.
    32. Edwin Leuven & Barbara Sianesi, 2003. "PSMATCH2: Stata module to perform full Mahalanobis and propensity score matching, common support graphing, and covariate imbalance testing," Statistical Software Components S432001, Boston College Department of Economics, revised 01 Feb 2018.
    33. George E. Battese, 1997. "A Note On The Estimation Of Cobb‐Douglas Production Functions When Some Explanatory Variables Have Zero Values," Journal of Agricultural Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 48(1‐3), pages 250-252, January.
    34. Christopher O’Donnell & D. Rao & George Battese, 2008. "Metafrontier frameworks for the study of firm-level efficiencies and technology ratios," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 34(2), pages 231-255, March.
    35. Masakure, Oliver & Henson, Spencer, 2005. "Why do small-scale producers choose to produce under contract? Lessons from nontraditional vegetable exports from Zimbabwe," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 33(10), pages 1721-1733, October.
    36. Neven, David & Reardon, Thomas, 2005. "The Rise Of Kenyan Supermarkets And The Evolution Of Their Fresh Fruits And Vegetables Procurement Systems," Staff Paper Series 11502, Michigan State University, Department of Agricultural, Food, and Resource Economics.
    37. 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.
    38. Mergenthaler, Marcus & Weinberger, Katinka & Qaim, Matin, 2009. "The food system transformation in developing countries: A disaggregate demand analysis for fruits and vegetables in Vietnam," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 34(5), pages 426-436, October.
    39. Caudill, Steven B. & Ford, Jon M., 1993. "Biases in frontier estimation due to heteroscedasticity," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 41(1), pages 17-20.
    40. Bart Minten & Lalaina Randrianarison & Johan Swinnen, 2007. "Spillovers from high‐value agriculture for exports on land use in developing countries: evidence from Madagascar," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 37(2‐3), pages 265-275, September.
    41. Antonio Alvarez & Christine Amsler & Luis Orea & Peter Schmidt, 2006. "Interpreting and Testing the Scaling Property in Models where Inefficiency Depends on Firm Characteristics," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 25(3), pages 201-212, June.
    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. Rao, Elizaphan J.O. & Qaim, Matin, 2013. "Supermarkets and agricultural labor demand in Kenya: A gendered perspective," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(C), pages 165-176.
    2. Schipmann, Christin & Qaim, Matin, 2011. "Supply chain differentiation, contract agriculture, and farmers' marketing preferences: The case of sweet pepper in Thailand," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 36(5), pages 666-676, October.
    3. Andersson, Camilla I.M. & Kiria, Christine G. & Qaim, Matin & Rao, Elizaphan J.O., 2013. "Following up on smallholder farmers and supermarkets," GlobalFood Discussion Papers 158142, Georg-August-Universitaet Goettingen, GlobalFood, Department of Agricultural Economics and Rural Development.
    4. Nuthalapati, Chandra S.R. & Sutradhar, Rajib & Reardon, Thomas & Qaim, Matin, 2020. "Supermarket procurement and farmgate prices in India," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 134(C).
    5. 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.
    6. Chaboud, Géraldine & Moustier, Paule, 2021. "The role of diverse distribution channels in reducing food loss and waste: The case of the Cali tomato supply chain in Colombia," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 98(C).
    7. H.H. Chang & C. van Marrewijk & R. Stringer & W. Umberger, 2013. "Investment, awareness, supermarkets, and profits: heterogeneous chili farmers in Indonesia," Working Papers 13-13, Utrecht School of Economics.
    8. 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.
    9. Rao, Elizaphan J.O. & Qaim, Matin, 2011. "The supermarket revolution and impacts on agricultural labor markets: Empirical evidence from Kenya," GlobalFood Discussion Papers 107745, Georg-August-Universitaet Goettingen, GlobalFood, Department of Agricultural Economics and Rural Development.
    10. Chiputwa, Brian & Spielman, David J. & Qaim, Matin, 2015. "Food Standards, Certification, and Poverty among Coffee Farmers in Uganda," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 66(C), pages 400-412.
    11. Qaim, Matin & Andersson, Camilla I.M. & Chege, Christine G.K. & Kimenju, Simon Chege & Klasen, Stephan & Rischke, Ramona, 2014. "Nutrition Effects of the Supermarket Revolution on Urban Consumers and Smallholder Farmers in Kenya," 2014 Annual Meeting, July 27-29, 2014, Minneapolis, Minnesota 177204, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    12. Benali, Marwan & Brümmer, Bernhard & Afari-Sefa, Victor, "undated". "Small producer participation in export vegetable supply chains and poverty: evidence from different export schemes in Tanzania," GlobalFood Discussion Papers 262583, Georg-August-Universitaet Goettingen, GlobalFood, Department of Agricultural Economics and Rural Development.
    13. Maertens, Miet & Swinnen, Johan, 2015. "Agricultural trade and development: A value chain perspective," WTO Staff Working Papers ERSD-2015-04, World Trade Organization (WTO), Economic Research and Statistics Division.
    14. Bellemare, Marc F. & Bloem, Jeffrey R., 2018. "Does contract farming improve welfare? A review," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 112(C), pages 259-271.
    15. Soullier, Guillaume & Moustier, Paule, 2018. "Impacts of contract farming in domestic grain chains on farmer income and food insecurity. Contrasted evidence from Senegal," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 79(C), pages 179-198.
    16. 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.
    17. John C. Beghin & Miet Maertens & Johan Swinnen, 2017. "Nontariff Measures and Standards in Trade and Global Value Chains," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: John Christopher Beghin (ed.), Nontariff Measures and International Trade, chapter 2, pages 13-38, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    18. Minten, Bart & Murshid, K.A.S. & Reardon, Thomas, 2013. "Food Quality Changes and Implications: Evidence from the Rice Value Chain of Bangladesh," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 100-113.
    19. Chege, Christine G.K. & Andersson, Camilla I.M. & Qaim, Matin, 2015. "Impacts of Supermarkets on Farm Household Nutrition in Kenya," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 394-407.
    20. Sara D. Elder, 2019. "The impact of supermarket supply chain governance on smallholder farmer cooperatives: the case of Walmart in Nicaragua," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 36(2), pages 213-224, June.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:ags:gagfdp:113508. 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: AgEcon Search (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/iagoede.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.