Contract Farming and the Development of Smallholder Agricultural Businesses: Improving Markets and Value Chains in Tanzania

ISBN-13: 9781138120747 / Angielski / Twarda / 2017 / 240 str.

Joseph A. Kuzilwa;Niels Fold;Arne Henningsen

Opis

Contract farming has received renewed attention recently as developing economies try to grapple with how to transform the agricultural sector and its associated value chains. This book reviews different contract arrangements and specific crops, applying both qualitative and quantitative approaches in order to capture the dynamics of the systems.

Major themes covered in the book include: emerging contract farming, issues and policy; contract farming and value chain impact; contract farming adoption decisions; the effect of contract farming on productivity and efficiency; and economic diversification, incomes and profitability. The book presents original research from a case study conducted in Tanzania which focuses on is the major crops of sugar cane, tobacco, sunflower and cotton. These all have a history of trials with explicit contract farming involving smallholders and are targeted as main crops for agro-industrial establishment and upgrading in national strategies. The authors show how formal credit for agriculture is vital in the performance of contract farming arrangements for small businesses, and how the lessons from their research can be applied to other settings in agricultural development.