Commercialization and Price Response within a Bean‐growing Farming System of Colombia

Abstract

This article reports results from the experimental application of the Frisch Interview Procedure to determine price responsiveness of subsistence farmers under conditions of severe data shortage. The context for the work is the program for development and adoption of new bean varieties at the Centro Internacional de Agricultura Tropical (CIAT).1 The conceptual framework is systems theory and partial equilibrium analysis of price response. The research, in a direction advocated for some time by J. W. Mellor, is designed to investigate the impact of variability in farming communities on guidelines for policy prescription and action programs.2 The hypothesis explored here is that changes in the relative prices of outputs of a farming system coincident with the introduction of new varieties should influence the adoption of new varieties. The underlying assumption is that farmers view alternative crops as substitutes and would increase the area planted to a crop perceived as being more profitable, other conditions remaining the same. However, the evidence obtained from a random sample of Colombian bean-producing farmers suggests that this assumption is ill founded. A majority do not perceive crops as substitutes, nor do many of them consider relative prices to influence their planting decisions. This result provides insight into component interactions and development processes for farming systems in general.