Abstract
AbstractWe show how policymakers in developing regions can generate richer insights from using the choice experiment method best‐worst scaling (BWS) method when ranking policy priorities on an importance scale. More specifically, we adopt BWS to provide an update on constraints that limit the participation of Kenyan horticultural smallholder farmers in modern agricultural value chains. In addition to traditional constraints posed by input market failures and missing institutions, we considered constraints such as trust and familiarity with buyers shown by recent empirical studies to inform smallholders’ market choices. Ascertaining the relevance of these constraints highlights our contribution to the existing literature. We find that farmers consistently rate access to high‐quality inputs as their main constraint followed by concerns about access to credit, the high cost of meeting food standards, missing cooperatives, and exploitative intermediaries. Respondents considered insufficient labor, small farmlands, and weak tenure rights as the least important constraints. Age, location, gender, household income, and education influence the relative importance various segments of smallholders place on these constraints. For example, constraints are economic rather than personal for low‐income farmers. Counterintuitively, rural smallholders are less likely to perceive poor transportation network as a constraint. Smallholders’ distrust of buyers they interact with is informed by their location and income. In designing intervention initiatives, policies that focus on segments of smallholders are needed for improving smallholder participation in modern agricultural value chains.
Highlights
Policymakers commonly elicit the opinion of those affected by current or future policy initiatives to better understand preferences for and the importance of these initiatives to guide decision-making and design of such initiatives
Which constraints do smallholders perceive to be very important or unimportant? given heterogeneity among smallholders, how do socioeconomic differences influence smallholders’ perceptions of these constraints? We address these questions in this study
Such studies have typically focused on which socioeconomic factors determine participation in HVMs, how different contract attributes mitigate the costs posed by various constraints, or how the behavior and experiences of smallholders and buyers might constitute a constraint
Summary
Policymakers commonly elicit the opinion of those affected by current or future policy initiatives to better understand preferences for and the importance of these initiatives to guide decision-making and design of such initiatives. Despite efforts by public and private sector policymakers to introduce intervention programs to facilitate HVM entry, these efforts have not had the intended effects, as smallholders still struggle to gain access to HVMs (Fernandez-Stark, Bamber, & Gereffi, 2012; Hernandez, Berdegué, & Reardon, 2015; Swinnen, Colen, & Maertens, 2013). Their struggles suggest an unclear understanding of the importance of constraints smallholders face when entering HVMs and the incentives needed to promote entry
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