Small producer participation in export vegetable supply chains and poverty: evidence from different export schemes in Tanzania

Abstract

With the rise and consolidation of modern supply chains, the welfare effects for participating small producers have been analyzed in the literature. However, these were often assessed through the comparison of participating producers with those not participating. Using endogenous switching regression models, we assess in this paper the effects of small producer participation in export vegetable supply chains in Tanzania on household income and compare the effects of supplying two different types of French beans and snap peas export supply chains, defined as high-value (HVESC) and regular export supply chains (RESC), respectively. We find that participation in export supply chains increases producers household per capita income. Our results also show that these effects vary from one type of export supply chains to the other and are mainly driven by HVESC. Through a disaggregated analysis, we find evidence that richer and larger producers benefit from supplying the HVESC while supplying the RESC can increase the household per capita income of some poorer producers. Acknowledgement : The authors are grateful to Bethelhem Legesse Debela and Dominic Lemken for their helpful comments on a previous version of the paper. The financial support received from the German Research Foundation (DFG) through the GlobalFood Research Training Group (RTG 1666), the Foundation fiat panis and the World Vegetable Center is gratefully acknowledged. Marwan Benali also acknowledges the financial support received from the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) for his doctoral studies. The data collection process and field survey were implemented in close collaboration with the World Vegetable Center regional office for Eastern and Southern Africa in Arusha, Tanzania.