Agricultural innovations are seen as a key avenue to improve nutrition and health in smallholder farm households. But details of these agriculture-nutrition-health linkages are not yet well understood. While there is a broad literature on the adoption of agricultural technologies, most studies...

Global poverty rates have declined considerably, but the number of people living in extreme poverty remains high. Many of the poor are smallholder farmers. Agricultural commercialization - meaning a shift from subsistence to more market-oriented farming - can play a central role in improving...

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...

In many developing countries, supermarkets are expanding rapidly. This also affects farmers’ marketing options. Previous studies have analyzed welfare effects for smallholders with crosssection data. Here, we use panel data and a differencing approach to study supply chain dynamics and better...

High-value agricultural supply chains have been playing an increasingly important role in developing countries and have had significant effects on the rural labour markets. This paper analyses the simultaneous effects of small producer participation in the latter on both household hired labour...

Smallholder farmers in developing countries often suffer from high risk and limited market access. Contract farming may improve the situation under certain conditions. Several studies analyzed effects of contracts on smallholder productivity and income with mixed results. Most existing studies...

While many studies analyzed effects of sustainability standards - such as Fairtrade or Rainforest Alliance - on smallholder farmers in developing countries, most did not sufficiently account for systematic differences between certified and non-certified farmers. Certified farmers are typically...

Undernutrition and low dietary quality remain widespread problems especially among smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa. Hence, the question as to how smallholder systems can be made more nutrition-sensitive is of particular relevance for research and policy. Recent studies analysed whether...

Mobile money (MM) services can contribute to welfare gains in smallholder farm households. Previous research showed that one important pathway is through higher remittances received from relatives and friends. Here, the role of other impact pathways is examined, especially focusing on...

Fairtrade standards differentiate themselves from other sustainability standards such as Rainforest Alliance and UTZ by demanding that buyers pay to farmers at least a minimum price and a Fairtrade social premium - a sum that is paid to cooperatives in addition to the agreed price to be used in...