This paper investigates the effects of network based individual social capital on the access of rural households to services. In the context of development economics, an innovative data collection approach is used to determine network based social capital. The approach originates from the field...

This paper analyzes technical efficiency of limited-resource farms operating in a sub-tropical environment (Province of Misiones, Argentina). Property rights over land, the degree of market exposure and food support programmes are three institutional variables that are hypothesized to lead to...

In emerging markets for high-value food products in developing countries, processing companies search for efficient ways to source raw material of consistent quality. One widely embraced approach is contract farming. But relatively little is known about the appropriate design of contracts,...

The purpose of this study is to assess the potential of clustering in the development of agriculture and rural communities in China. We shall examine in detail the food industry, which is the link in the food chain that propels the industrialization of agriculture, and identify instances of...

The liberalization and restructuring of the seed sector in eastern and southern Africa (ESA) during the past two decades have witnessed a proliferation of private seed companies in the maize seed industry (Hassan et al., 2001; Lemonius, 2005). Although the total number of registered maize seed...

Development literature has recently promoted the use of producer organization in linking farmers to better-paying commodity markets. However, empirical studies find mixed performance of such organizations. This study examines the producer organization’s internal factors that may explain the...

In the Czech Republic, agricultural production is still dominated by corporate farms. Private farms have been established since the change of the political regime, but their role is not that relevant as originally anticipated. Among both groups, some have been economically more successful than...