Abstract
The last two decades have witnessed many developing countries diversify exports into non traditional fresh exports (NTFE), especially fresh fruits and vegetable. The diversification has been driven by globalization and changing consumer lifestyle among others. The NTFE are grown mainly by smallholder farmers in developing countries. As the trade with developing countries has expanded, so have been the demands for compliance with very stringent food safety standards. What has been the effect of these standards on smallholder farmer participation in the NTFE value chain? Where in the value chain are smallholder farmers most affected? And how have such farmers adjusted to these effects? This study uses green bean value chains in three African countries to address these questions. It identifies six critical points at which smallholder farmers face the greatest risk of being marginalized by the standards and the strategies used by farmers to respond these threats in order to maintain their participation in the high-end export markets. Of the six critical control points, smallholders farmers are most threatened with exclusion from green bean value chain at the pre-harvest farm-level and collection centre control points. Farmers have had to use two non-market strategies namely, collective action and public-private partnerships to avoid being marginalized at these points of the value chain. These findings imply that the market, if left on its own, could adopt solutions that exclude smallholder farmers from NTFE value chain.
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Notes
- 1.
These include okra, dudhi, chillies and brinjals.
- 2.
The protocols included those outlined in the Tesco supermarket’s Nature’s Choice and Mark and Spencer’s Farm to Folk standards. The requirements of these standards often exceeded the official (public) regulations (Jaffee 2003).
- 3.
York Farms did not buy green beans from smallholder farmers, but instead grow its own beans.
- 4.
These requirements related to size, spotlessness, straightness and length of the green bean pods.
- 5.
These requirements that are usually imposed by exporters are normally based on different EU public and private standards. Some may not be directly specified by any of the DCFSS, but are designed to meet the standards. The case in point is the use of protective gear which is intended to protect farmers/farmworkers from exposure to pesticides.
- 6.
At the time, this exporter was the only buyer in the two districts. Hence farmers who failed to comply after the 6 month automatically exited green bean export industry.
- 7.
See Okello (2011) for a discussion on smallholder farmers struggle to meet the standards and the various types of responses as well as their outcomes.
- 8.
Okello and Swinton (2007) provide an excellent and detailed discussion of this issue.
- 9.
In Kenya and Zambia, the supermarket chain was dominant while in Ethiopia the European wholesale market chain dominated although the Ethiopian green bean industry was at the time of this study setting up the mechanisms needed to strengthen its share of the supermarket chain.
- 10.
The high cost of pest scouting related to the need to employ a technical assistant (TA) that has training in entomology and plant pathology to assist farmers with pest/disease control.
- 11.
Jaffee (2003) provides a detailed analysis of the fresh produce industry in Kenya and also suggests a similar trend for fresh vegetable exports. He attributes the upward trend to an increase in fresh prepacked (i.e., processed ready-to-stir-fry) vegetable exports during the period, a business pioneered by Kenyan exporters in response to standards and competition from whole (i.e., unprocessed) green bean exports from North African countries.
- 12.
The clerk kept records needed to meet the traceability requirement.
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Okello, J.J. (2015). Food Standards, Smallholder Farmers and Participation in High Value Fresh Export Markets. In: Hammoudi, A., Grazia, C., Surry, Y., Traversac, JB. (eds) Food Safety, Market Organization, Trade and Development. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-15227-1_11
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