Return to quality in rural agricultural markets: Evidence from wheat markets in Ethiopia

Return to quality in rural agricultural markets: Evidence from wheat markets in Ethiopia PDF Author: Do Nascimento Miguel, Jérémy
Publisher: Intl Food Policy Res Inst
ISBN:
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 66

Get Book Here

Book Description
In many Sub-Saharan countries, farmers cannot meet the growing urban demand for higher quality products, leading to increasing dependency on imports. While the literature has focused on production-side constraints to enhancing smallholder farmers’ output quality, there is scarce evidence of market-side constraints. Using a unique sample of 60 wheat markets in Ethiopia, I examine the relationship between the price obtained by farmers and the quality supplied. Using objective and precise measures of observable (impurity content) and unobservable (flour extraction rate and moisture level) quality attributes, no evidence was found of a strong correlation between the two, suggesting that observable attributes cannot serve as proxies for unobservable ones. Transaction prices further reflect this, indicating that, markets only reward quality attributes that are observable at no cost. However, these results hide cross-market heterogeneity. Observable quality attributes are better rewarded in larger and more competitive markets, while unobservable attributes are rewarded in the presence of grain millers and/or farmer cooperatives on the market site. Both regression and machine learning approaches support these findings.

Return to quality in rural agricultural markets: Evidence from wheat markets in Ethiopia

Return to quality in rural agricultural markets: Evidence from wheat markets in Ethiopia PDF Author: Do Nascimento Miguel, Jérémy
Publisher: Intl Food Policy Res Inst
ISBN:
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 66

Get Book Here

Book Description
In many Sub-Saharan countries, farmers cannot meet the growing urban demand for higher quality products, leading to increasing dependency on imports. While the literature has focused on production-side constraints to enhancing smallholder farmers’ output quality, there is scarce evidence of market-side constraints. Using a unique sample of 60 wheat markets in Ethiopia, I examine the relationship between the price obtained by farmers and the quality supplied. Using objective and precise measures of observable (impurity content) and unobservable (flour extraction rate and moisture level) quality attributes, no evidence was found of a strong correlation between the two, suggesting that observable attributes cannot serve as proxies for unobservable ones. Transaction prices further reflect this, indicating that, markets only reward quality attributes that are observable at no cost. However, these results hide cross-market heterogeneity. Observable quality attributes are better rewarded in larger and more competitive markets, while unobservable attributes are rewarded in the presence of grain millers and/or farmer cooperatives on the market site. Both regression and machine learning approaches support these findings.

Return to Quality in Rural Agricultural Markets

Return to Quality in Rural Agricultural Markets PDF Author: Jérémy Do Nascimento Miguel
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Get Book Here

Book Description


Returns to Quality in Rural Agricultural Markets

Returns to Quality in Rural Agricultural Markets PDF Author: Jérémy Do Nascimento Miguel
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Get Book Here

Book Description
In many Sub-Saharan countries, farmers cannot meet the growing urban demand for higher quality products. While the literature has focused on production-side constraints to enhancing smallholder farmers' output quality, there is scarce evidence of market-side constraints. Using a sample of 60 wheat markets in Ethiopia, I assess whether farmers received a price premium for supplying higher quality outputs. I exploit a unique feature of the data which precisely measures observable and unobservable quality attributes, and relate them to transaction prices. I find that observable attributes cannot serve as proxies for unobservable ones. Transaction prices further reflect this, indicating that, markets only reward quality attributes observable at no cost. However, these results hide cross-market heterogeneity. Observable quality attributes are better rewarded in larger and more competitive markets, while unobservable attributes are rewarded in the presence of grain millers and/or farmer cooperatives. Both regression and machine learning approaches support these findings.

Buyers’ response to third-party quality certification: Theory and evidence from Ethiopian wheat traders

Buyers’ response to third-party quality certification: Theory and evidence from Ethiopian wheat traders PDF Author: Abate, Gashaw Tadesse
Publisher: Intl Food Policy Res Inst
ISBN:
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 61

Get Book Here

Book Description
When quality attributes of a product are not directly observable, third-party certification (TPC) enables buyers to purchase the quality they are most interested in and reward sellers accordingly. Beyond product characteristics, buyers’ use of TPC services also depends on market conditions. We study the introduction of TPC in typical smallholder-based agriculture value chains of low-income countries, where traders must aggregate products from many small-scale producers before selling in bulk to downstream processors, and where introduction of TPC services has oftentimes failed. We develop a theoretical model identifying how different market conditions affect traders’ choice to purchase quality-certified output from farmers. Using a purposefully designed lab-in-the-field experiment with rural wheat traders in Ethiopia, we find mixed support for the model’s prediction: traders’ willingness to specialize in certified output does increase with the share of certified wheat in the market, and this effect is stronger in larger markets. It, however, does not decrease with the quality of uncertified wheat in the market. We further analyze conditions where traders deviate from the theoretically optimal behavior and discuss implications for future research and public policies seeking to promote TPC in smallholder-based food value-chains.

Rice Green Revolution in Sub-Saharan Africa

Rice Green Revolution in Sub-Saharan Africa PDF Author: Keijiro Otsuka
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 9811980462
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 312

Get Book Here

Book Description
This open access book seeks effective strategy to realize a rice Green Revolution in sub-Saharan Africa based on more than ten years of research team’s inquiries into determinants and consequences of new technology adoption in rice farming in seven countries in this region. Rigorous statistical analyses are carried out by using valuable household data of rice farmers. The book is actually sequel to the two earlier books on the same subject published by Springer and edited by K. Otsuka and D.F. Larson, An African Green Revolution published in 2013 and In Pursuit of an African Green Revolution in 2016. The main message of the first book was that rice is the most promising cereal crop in SSA because of the high transferability of Asian rice technology, whereas that of the second book was that rice cultivation training programs are effective in significantly increasing rice yield in SSA. This third book has wider coverage in terms of topics, study periods, and study sites. It continues to show the significant impacts of rice cultivation training on productivity and newly demonstrates the high sustainability of the productivity impact of the training and the existence of spillover effects from trainees to other farmers by using panel data. We newly assess the important role of mechanization in intensification of rice farming, high returns to large-scale irrigation schemes, and the critical role of rice millers in improving the quality of milled rice. Based on these studies, this book provides clear pathways toward full-fledged Green Revolution in rice farming in sub-Saharan Africa.

On Making Agricultural Markets Work for the Poor

On Making Agricultural Markets Work for the Poor PDF Author: Maria Quattri
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

Get Book Here

Book Description
This thesis contributes to the literature on making agricultural markets work for the poor, with specific reference to Ethiopia. It contains three substantive chapters, which may be read independently. The chapters use primary surveys with traders conducted in 2002 (chapters 2 and 3) and 2007 (all the chapters).Chapter 1 investigates Ethiopian traders' decision on whether and how much to use brokers. Results shine light on how the Ethiopia Commodity Exchange (ECX), which recently formalized the brokerage functions, could be most beneficial for the functioning of agricultural markets. We show that the ECX could consider introducing new food crops in the trading system, offering warehouse receipt financing to its clients, and spreading the network of its warehouses throughout the country. Chapter 2 inquires whether the focus on technological and institutional upgrading is sufficient to make Ethiopian agricultural markets more efficient and if the existence of many small intermediaries causes market inefficiency. Findings suggest that, when transporters are used, transport costs could be reduced by avoiding trans-shipment, and reducing the number of times the transporter has to stop to allow for cargo loading and off-loading. No evidence is found for increasing returns to transaction size. Chapter 3 conceptualizes the notion of market integration as 'tradability' and analyses what determines the likelihood of market diversification among Ethiopian traders. The variables that are found to significantly impact on this probability are location (which is correlated with access to asphalt roads), availability of market information, traders' educational level, access to commercial finance and storage capacity. Results indicate that market fundamentals affected the likelihood of market diversification more in 2007, when prices were rapidly surging, than in 2001 when prices were decreasing. The findings of this thesis support the 'getting markets right' school, in that incentives, infrastructure and institutions are essential for market development, and long-distance coordination of market exchange can be achieved through public-private cooperation.

Food and Agriculture in Ethiopia

Food and Agriculture in Ethiopia PDF Author: Paul Dorosh
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 0812208617
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 377

Get Book Here

Book Description
The perception of Ethiopia projected in the media is often one of chronic poverty and hunger, but this bleak assessment does not accurately reflect most of the country today. Ethiopia encompasses a wide variety of agroecologies and peoples. Its agriculture sector, economy, and food security status are equally complex. In fact, since 2001 the per capita income in certain rural areas has risen by more than 50 percent, and crop yields and availability have also increased. Higher investments in roads and mobile phone technology have led to improved infrastructure and thereby greater access to markets, commodities, services, and information. In Food and Agriculture in Ethiopia: Progress and Policy Challenges, Paul Dorosh and Shahidur Rashid, along with other experts, tell the story of Ethiopia's political, economic, and agricultural transformation. The book is designed to provide empirical evidence to shed light on the complexities of agricultural and food policy in today's Ethiopia, highlight major policies and interventions of the past decade, and provide insights into building resilience to natural disasters and food crises. It examines the key issues, constraints, and opportunities that are likely to shape a food-secure future in Ethiopia, focusing on land quality, crop production, adoption of high-quality seed and fertilizer, and household income. Students, researchers, policy analysts, and decisionmakers will find this book a useful overview of Ethiopia's political, economic, and agricultural transformation as well as a resource for major food policy issues in Ethiopia. Contributors: Dawit Alemu, Guush Berhane, Jordan Chamberlin, Sarah Coll-Black, Paul Dorosh, Berhanu Gebremedhin, Sinafikeh Asrat Gemessa, Daniel O. Gilligan, John Graham, Kibrom Tafere Hirfrfot, John Hoddinott, Adam Kennedy, Neha Kumar, Mehrab Malek, Linden McBride, Dawit Kelemework Mekonnen, Asfaw Negassa, Shahidur Rashid, Emily Schmidt, David Spielman, Alemayehu Seyoum Taffesse, Seneshaw Tamiru, James Thurlow, William Wiseman.

Foreign Exchange Rationing, Wheat Markets and Food Security in Ethiopia

Foreign Exchange Rationing, Wheat Markets and Food Security in Ethiopia PDF Author: Paul Dorosh
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 27

Get Book Here

Book Description
In spite of remarkable growth in Ethiopia's agricultural production and overall real incomes (GDP/capita) from 2004/05 to 2008/09, prices of major cereals (teff, maize, wheat and sorghum) have fluctuated sharply in both nominal and real terms. International prices of cereals also fluctuated widely, particularly between 2006 and 2008. However, the links between Ethiopia's domestic cereal markets and the international market are by no means straightforward. Among the major staples, only wheat is imported or exported on a significant scale. And frequent changes in trade and macro-economic policies, movements in international prices and fluctuations in domestic production have at times eliminated incentives for private sector imports of wheat. From July 2005 to March 2007, private sector wheat imports were profitable and domestic wheat prices closely tracked import parity prices. Then, from April 2007 to May 2008, good domestic harvests coincided with increase international wheat prices, so private sector wheat imports were no longer profitable. Most recently, rationing of foreign exchange for imports effectively stopped private sector wheat imports beginning in about April 2008. Partial equilibrium analysis shows, however, that government imports and sales in 2008-09 effectively increased domestic supply and lowered market wheat prices. These sales at the low official price also implied that recipient households, traders and flour mills enjoyed a significant subsidy. Allowing the private sector access to foreign exchange for wheat imports or auctioning government wheat imports in domestic markets would eliminate these rents and generate additional government revenue, while having the same effect on market prices as government subsidized sales.

Creating Agricultural Markets

Creating Agricultural Markets PDF Author: Abenet Bekele Haile
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

Get Book Here

Book Description
Commodity exchanges can provide emerging market economies with orderly, transparent, and efficient markets by acting as mechanisms that mitigate price risk, discover equilibrium prices, and connect buyers and sellers. Exchanges can also reduce transaction costs and information asymmetries by using technology to disseminate market information while creating better supply chains. The Ethiopia commodity exchange is striving to transform Ethiopia's agriculture sector from a fragmented one marked by high transaction costs and low quality standards to a thriving and reliable part of the country's economy. Ethiopia's exchange continues to expand its activity across the farming regions of the country.

On Making Agricultural Markets Work for the Poor

On Making Agricultural Markets Work for the Poor PDF Author: Maria Quattri
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Get Book Here

Book Description