Abstract
Abstract. A resurrected interest in agriculture has brought in its wake growing interest in smallholders in the global South by scholars, companies, governments and development agencies alike. While non-governmental organisations and development agencies see the potential to reduce poverty, companies look upon smallholder agriculture as a widely untapped resource for the sourcing of crops and as a sales market for agricultural inputs. While the important role of large corporate buyers of agricultural produce as lead firms in value chains is often discussed and emphasised, the power of providers of technology and agricultural inputs is being rather neglected. In this paper, we analyse two case studies of technology and input providers in agricultural value chains and their role in smallholder inclusion with the aim of finding out how such companies impact the governance of the value chains. To do so we combine insights from the value chain literature with the concept of framing/overflowing.
Highlights
“As demand for agricultural products rises around the world, partnering with the smallholder farming sector offers agribusiness companies significant opportunities to grow their own businesses” (GIZ, 2012:7)
While non-governmental organisations and development agencies see the potential to reduce poverty, companies look upon smallholder agriculture as a widely untapped resource for the sourcing of crops and as a sales market for agricultural inputs
The existing literature tends “to emphasize the impact of lead firms in determining the governance structure of a given chain. [. . .] It tends to downplay the agency of other actors [. . .] in shaping the governance structure, upgrading possibilities, and unequal distribution of value associated with particular chains” (Hough, 2011:1017)
Summary
“As demand for agricultural products rises around the world, partnering with the smallholder farming sector offers agribusiness companies significant opportunities to grow their own businesses” (GIZ, 2012:7). This statement from a guide book for agribusiness companies shows the current trend. Helping smallholders integrate themselves into modern domestic or even global value chains is an important part of this strategy, which results in the commercialisation of smallholder farming In this field, a wide range of collaborative arrangements between large-scale investors, farmers and communities has developed since the 1990s. The paper aims at analysing how input and technology providers can frame smallholder value chain inclusion and how they gain influence over the governance and coordination structure of agricultural value chains. Before we turn to the case studies, we will give an insight into the conceptual frameworks that we will use for the analysis
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