Abstract
The Vietnamese government is currently attempting to upgrade rice value chains in the Mekong River Delta by encouraging (i) vertical coordination between exporters and farmers through contract farming, and (ii) horizontal coordination among farmers through the “small farmers, large field” program. Previous studies on the determinants of contract farming participation assume that firms offer only a single contract type, whereas in reality, farmers may face a continuum of exclusive contract options. Devising correct and targeted policies for fostering contract inclusiveness hence crucially hinges on deploying correct econometric specification of the decision to participate in contract farming. We model contract farming participation and intensity in four different ways along the vertical coordination continuum: as a discrete, categorical, ordered, and continuous choice. We find that older, smaller and horizontally coordinated farmers with higher levels of trust in buyers tend to secure higher levels of buyer investment through increased vertical coordination. In contrast with the common finding in the literature that contract participation is biased towards larger farms, our findings from Vietnam suggest that the scale bias of contract farming could be successfully relaxed through horizontal coordination and even reversed under increasing levels of vertical coordination as smaller farmers are found to secure higher levels of buyer investment. These findings highlight the role both policies can play in fostering inclusiveness of contract farming in rice value chain upgrading in Vietnam.
Highlights
Deposited cobalt-rich hard magnetic films are promising materials for magnetic components in various applications such as microelectromechanical systems (MEMS), sensors and ultra-large-scale integration (ULSI) circuit systems [1,2,3,4,5,6]
Ultrasound irradiation realizes reduced process temperature of electroless deposition in alkaline bath for Co-P hard magnetic films deposited on copper substrates
The assistance of ultrasonic agitation (UsA) lowers the activation energy of electroless reaction to 34.7 kJ/mol, and a comparable depositing rate can be maintained by adjusting the pH values of electrolyte
Summary
Deposited cobalt-rich hard magnetic films are promising materials for magnetic components in various applications such as microelectromechanical systems (MEMS), sensors and ultra-large-scale integration (ULSI) circuit systems [1,2,3,4,5,6]. In the reaction system of Co-P electroless deposition, annoying alterations are encountered in electrolyte concentrations [7,8,9], bath pH values [10, 11] and bath temperatures [12] with elapse time. Bath temperature above 80oC is typically required for regular electroless deposition of Co-P hard magnetic films [2, 6, 10]. High processing temperature remains a significant drawback to maintaining the stability of electrolyte [11] Such a vital drawback is an obstacle to deposit thick Co-P hard magnetic films, which are typically required to produce stray field that is proportional to their volumes
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have