Small-scale Traders Research Articles

Blood lead levels among young children in a rural area of Ghana

Introduction: Blood lead (Pb) levels in low concentrations is associated with significant decrease in intellectual ability among children. The Centre for Disease Control in the US recommends a threshold of 5 microgrograms /dL as an indicator of exposure to lead and a trigger for corrective actions. We investigated the prevalence of Pb levels >5 micrograms/dL among rural children prior to the start of a large mining project (2006) and after 6 years of mining activities (2012). Method: Children less than 5 years of age were randomly selected from households within the study area in Ghana. Prior to the mining activity in 2006, majority of household members were farmers. In 2012, majority of community members small scale traders. Blood lead levels were determined using an automated lead analyzer and kits ( ESA, Inc. USA). Normal and abnormal lead control sample were included in each batch of analysis to ensure quality values. Results: The prevalence of children with blood Pb concentration >5 micrograms/dL was 43.5% (95% CI 41.1 – 46.0% N=1635) in 2006 and 22.6% (95%CI 20.0% – 25.6% N=873) in 2012. In both years, males had a significantly higher prevalence of Pb concentration >5 micrograms/dL. Household characteristics such as socioeconomic status, housing type, household size and household head education was not associated with >5 micrograms/dL in blood. Conclusion A high proportion of children less than 5 years are exposed to lead but the proportion of children exposed has reduced over time. There is the need for urgent action in preventing lead exposure to children in the study area.

BEBERAPA HIPOTESIS PERTUMBUHAN PEKERJAAN OFF-FARM

Off-farm employment and non-agriculture activities have grown rapidly in the rural areas of Java due mainly to the increasing number of female workers employed in small-scale trade. Based on a through discussion on various definitions and hypotheses on the growths of trade and off-farm employment, it could be assumed that the growth of the small-scale traders does not signify that some stagnation of economy or an agricultural involution would take place, but that there will be a significant step in the transformation process on the part of the Javanese farming community as well as on the future economic development.

Developing greener food value chains: environmentally friendly tomato post-harvest operations in four cities

The main aim of the study was to attempt to better understand environmentally friendly tomato post-harvest operations provided by micro- and small-scale farmers and traders in the context of bottom-of-the-pyramid (BOP) peri-urban and urban areas of four major cities: Dar es Salaam (Tanzania), Nairobi (Kenya), Tunis (Tunisia), and Cairo (Egypt). The study was initiated with an in-depth literature review and was followed by in-country, unstructured, informal, one-to-one interviews with a random number of micro- and small-scale farmers and traders and pictographic observations of table tomato post-harvest operations. The findings of the study provided a sample of practices and ‘innovations’ in post-harvest operations that used prevalently recycled post-harvest equipment, sparingly used natural resources, such as water, and powered operations using only energy of human origin. The findings ranged from the use of home-made sand filters for water purification, to large green leaves for ‘refrigeration’, to recyc...

Defining Duty in the Civil War: Personal Choice, Popular Culture, and the Union Home Front by J. Matthew Gallman

Reviewed by: Defining Duty in the Civil War: Personal Choice, Popular Culture, and the Union Home Front by J. Matthew Gallman Lorien Foote (bio) Defining Duty in the Civil War: Personal Choice, Popular Culture, and the Union Home Front. By J. Matthew Gallman. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2015. Pp. 327. Cloth, $45.00.) An interested but uninformed reader surveying titles related to the Civil War would be pardoned for reaching an erroneous conclusion. Considering the number of studies on the subject, the hypothetical reader might assume that most northern white men were either soldiers or dissenters on the home front, while most northern women volunteered at sanitary fairs. J. Matthew Gallman knows better, and his study examines [End Page 452] the immense number of northerners who supported the Union’s war effort but who chose not to make personal sacrifices for the cause. Defining Duty in the Civil War is a study of the messages about patriotism and duty contained in a variety of printed materials produced during the war: cartoons, song sheets, recruiting posters, popular novels, satire, editorials, and articles and stories in newspapers and journals. Gallman explains how these works were disseminated throughout the nation to create a single public discourse absorbed by a vast rural and urban middle class. This literature contained a coherent cultural message that might surprise both the hypothetical uninformed reader and more knowledgeable scholars of the Civil War. Middle-class northerners who looked at cartoons and read popular literature found that expectations about a citizen’s duty to the nation were modest. All that was required of good citizens was enthusiastic support for the war through good times and bad; personal sacrifice was not required. For a man, the decision to enlist or not was presented as a personal choice with numerous legitimate reasons to stay home. During the draft, men were simply required to play by the rules and take their chances along with everyone else. If called to service, there was no stigma attached to those who used legal avenues to avoid service. A man’s only obligation was to think carefully about his decision in consultation with his conscience and his family. Women were called upon to be informed. Their most important role in the war was to encourage men to enlist (although the literature aimed at men supported those who did not do so) and to embrace the disfigured men who returned home from the war. If cultural messages did not urge northerners toward any specific personal sacrifices, they did paint a clear portrait of how not to behave. Satire ridiculed the “swells” and “silly women” who were ignorant fools, and the “shoulder straps”—hypocrites who wore uniforms but avoided battle. Corrupt war contractors and government officials received ire, as did those cynics who made profits off the war while being indifferent to the cause. Cartoons and articles targeted the “shoddy aristocracy” for particular abuse. These sinners were newly wealthy shopkeepers and small-scale traders, usually portrayed as immigrant Irish New Yorkers, who had inappropriate social aspirations. They spent vast sums in a manner that revealed their ignorance and lack of taste. Gallman comments that the war thus “provided a convenient outlet for broad-based class and ethnic hostilities” (114). In contrast with the spate of recent studies on the development of concepts of citizenship and nationalism in the North during the Civil War, Gallman finds that in the popular literature he examined, there was “little [End Page 453] sense of national citizenship as an identity that encompassed both rights and responsibilities, framed as an explicit reciprocal relationship between the individual and the state” (257). The exception was the conversation about duty in the northern free black community, which hinged on questions of “collective obligations” and “citizenship and reciprocity” (225–26). The discourse in the white community, on the other hand, focused rather on the personal decisions of individuals. This conclusion places Defining Duty in the Civil War squarely in line with Alice Fahs’s comprehensive study The Imagined Civil War: Popular Literature of the North and South, 1861–1865 (2001), which argues that the Civil War reinforced and promoted individualism as much as it did...

Constructing the Neighbourly Other: Trade Relations and Mutual Perceptions across the Vietnam–China Border

The normalization of post-war relations in the late 1980s has transformed the Vietnam–China border from a line of demarcation between two hostile neighbours into a zone of profitable economic opportunities. At the Lao Cai central market, Vietnamese small-scale traders and Chinese citizens interact with one another on a daily basis. Their narratives reveal that processes of constructing self-identity and otherness at the Vietnam–China border are ambiguous and multivocal. They attest to historically rooted stereotypes linked to China’s claim of civilizational and economic superiority as much as they are conditioned by face-to-face commercial transactions that challenge essentialized assumptions about the cross-border Other.

A novel view of suprathreshold stochastic resonance and its applications to financial markets

We introduce an original application of Suprathreshold Stochastic Resonance (SSR). Given a noise-corrupted signal, we induce SSR in effort to filter the effect of the corrupting noise. This will yield a clearer version of the signal we desire to detect. We propose a financial application that can potentially reveal big positions in a market. We assume there exist return signals that correspond to big orders, which are hidden by noise from small scale traders. We induce SSR in an attempt to reveal these big positions.

Social networks and small business performance in West African border regions

This paper studies the links between economic performance and social networks in West Africa. Using data collected on 358 small-scale traders in five border markets, we show that social networks can be simultaneously a resource which positively contributes to labour market outcomes and a social burden that has a negative economic impact. Testing the effect of social networks between small traders and three categories of actors, we find that the most well-connected actors are also the most successful in terms of monthly profit. The effects of social networks are, however, dependent on the type of persons with whom traders are connected. We show that support received from state representatives and politicians is converted into economic performance, while the impact of law enforcement officers on the monthly profits of traders is not significant. We also find that interacting with traditional religious leaders has a negative effect on economic performance. Our work has two implications: Firstly, collecting data on social networks remains challenging due to endogeneity. Secondly, network-enhancing policies should aim at improving both the internal connectivity of economic actors at the local level and their external connectivity with the rest of the world.

‘Lộc Bestowed by Heaven’: Fate, Fortune, and Morality in the Vietnamese Marketplace

Drawing on six months of fieldwork in Lào Cai City at the Vietnam-China border, this paper explores how the intersecting notions of fate, fortune and luck play out in the Vietnamese marketplace and intertwine with moral ideas expressed in economic choices and ethical conduct. Whereas small-scale traders agreed that one needs to work hard in order to prosper, the ways in which economic success is conceptually framed reveal that discipline, rational calculation and personal skills were often downplayed. Instead, a person's propensity for trade and the wealth generated by it were narratively constructed as part of a person's fate decreed by heaven. Moreover, a trader's success in business was referred to as lộc—a key concept in Vietnamese thought that relates to good luck, fortune, prosperity and divine benevolence. Together, rather than fostering a fatalistic attitude towards life, the notions of heaven/trời and fortune/lộc reinforce ideas of moral responsibility for the wellbeing of both present and future generations and thus, indirectly, for the welfare of society as a whole.

Social Networks as Livelihood Strategies for Small-scale Traders on the Thai–Lao Border

ABSTRACTSmall scale cross-border trade on the Thai–Lao border has come under increasing pressure with the construction of a new Mekong bridge that has expanded formal trade between the two countries. Most small-scale traders are women who, with assistance from family and friends, have developed small businesses from childhood, and created social networks across the border with other traders, and relevant actors such as drivers and government officials. Such networks, trust, experience and familiarity enabled superior access to information and trading concessions that have enabled the continued success of small-scale trade, the maintenance of complex cross-border livelihoods, and the ability of traders across an increasingly regulated border to deal with constraints and risks. A few established traders have developed trade networks and social relationships involving supply chains across several countries.

A partial equilibrium approach to estimating the potential payoffs of providing improved agricultural market information in the form of price forecasts

This article develops a simple partial equilibrium model to provide lower-bound estimates of the potential payoffs of providing improved agricultural market information in the form of price forecasts to producers and consumers. It then applies the model to estimate the potential benefits to farmers and small-scale traders of improved market information on maize, millet, sorghum and paddy rice in Mali. The potential value of information is estimated as the reduction in deadweight loss when farmers and small-scale traders with rational expectations respond to hypothetical improved price forecasts from Market Information Systems (MIS). The study finds that potential benefits from improved information, which can also be viewed as a reduction of cost from being off the equilibrium price and quantity, are greater when there is high uncertainty about future prices, high own-price elasticity of supply, low own-price elasticity of demand, and high value of crop output. The study suggests that crop-specific MIS and MIS that provide region-specific information, based on local area supply and demand responses to prices, have potentially higher returns than national uniformly distributed MIS covering a wide range of commodities in the country.

Making Law: Small-Scale Trade and Corrupt Exceptions at the Vietnam-China Border

In Vietnam's postreform era, the proliferation of profiteering opportunities have, in addition to creating new forms of corruption, transmuted previously prevailing types of corrupt acts in multiple ways across different levels of state–society relations. Everyday corrupt practices have thus become an essential means of economic survival for many. Starting from the metaphorical framing of petty bribery as “making law,” I propose the notion of what I term “corrupt exception” as a conceptual tool to explore the power dynamics of petty corruption between state agents and small-scale traders at the Vietnam–China border. Whereas bribery is felt by local traders to create better profit opportunities, the corrupt exception likewise pushes them into a de facto illegality where they remain subjected to arbitrary “lawmaking” and excluded from legal protection. I show that the metaphors employed by small-scale traders to negotiate complicit relationships with corrupt state officials both contest and reinforce the exercise of a localized form of sovereign power in a permanent state of corrupt exception in which “law” is “made” in exchange for bribes.

Establishing Social Justice Through Financial Inclusivity: Islamic Propagation by Islamic Savings and Credit Cooperatives in Indonesia

AbstractIslamic finance has been growing significantly across the globe. In Southeast Asia, interest in Islamic finance and its growth is significant in Malaysia. Compared with Malaysia, in Indonesia, however, the largest Muslim population country where an Islamic resurgence has been widely taking place, the growth of Islamic banks remains slower and on a smaller scale. Furthermore, recent research shows that Islamic piety does not systematically translate into the use of Islamic banks among middle-class Indonesians. Against these findings, this article highlights a relatively understudied Islamic finance institution, Islamic Savings and Credit Cooperatives, in Indonesia commonly known as Baitul Maal wat Tamwil (BMT). The BMT sector is separate from the banking sector and as such has received little scholarly attention as part of Islamic finance in Indonesia. The number of the BMTs in Indonesia has increased significantly since the 1990s and they are grass-roots Islamic financial institutions offering financial services to relatively small-scale traders in urban areas. Based on data from anthropological research in Central Java, this article argues that Islamic propagation is an important element among the BMT founders and workers. They perceive their economic activities as Islamic propagation by deeds (dakwah bil hal) to achieve social justice.

ANALISIS VALUE CHAIN SYSTEM DAN STRATEGY PEMASARAN RUMPUT LAUT DI KABUPATEN MALUKU TENGGARA (Analyze Value Chain System and Seaweed Marketing Strategy in North East Maluku District)

Potential land in Southeast Maluku regency, Maluku Province, is one of the means in the seaweed cultivation and production. Additionally, as most people work as fishermen, theireconomic situation is getting improved although it is not yetin accordance with the target of maximum achievement at the level of life necessities. To increase the production and marketing of seaweed, this study usedthe Value Chain System which analyzedmain activities include the process of Nurseries, Operations, Logistics and phase of marketing and sales which are supported by Infrastructure, Human Resource Management, and Development of Seaweed Technology. In the description of the Value Chain, theanalysisof added-valuewas also performed on each main actor with a value of Rp. 288 to fishermen, Rp. 550 to Small Scale Traders, and Rp.850 to LargeScale Traders. The determination of the marketing strategy using SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) produced the alternative marketing strategies in strategy formulation. It was concluded based on internal and external factors in the seaweed production and marketing processes. In this context, the analysis of the value chain system was critical to improve the market access and to ensure a more efficient flow of products, as well asto ensure that all actors benefit proportionally, according to their contributions.Keywords: Value Chain, Seaweed Marketing, SWOT

Improving health services for African migrants in China: A health diplomacy perspective

Global health has become an increasingly prominent component of foreign policy in the last decade. The term health diplomacy has been used to describe this growing interface between foreign policy and global health, and it encompasses both the concept of using health to further foreign policy objectives as well as the idea that diplomatic tools can be helpful for attaining public health goals. The Chinese presence in Africa has grown in the last 15 years, generating increased interest in Sino-African relations. While much has been written in recent years about the Chinese presence in Africa, the growing numbers of Africans in China have attracted considerably less attention. Many are small-scale traders and might be expected to face many of the health challenges common among foreign migrants, but their health needs have been largely unrecognised. In this paper, we consider how a health diplomacy approach could be applied to African migrants in China, and the potential advantages and limitations of this strategy. We identify areas of overlap between public health, trade and foreign policy goals that can be emphasised to generate support for improved services for African migrants in China and to engage partners from a diversity of sectors.

Creating scarcity from abundance: Bumper harvests, high prices, and the role of state interventions in Zambian maize markets

In 2012/13 Zambia experienced a significant spike in maize meal prices, which coincided with three consecutive years (2010 - 2012) of record maize surpluses. This seemingly paradoxical price spike occurred in the wake of a dramatic escalation of the Government’s Food Reserve Agency (FRA) interventions in the market, with the FRA purchasing approximately 80% of the available surplus during these surplus production years. Using a case study approach, this article explores Zambia’s maize price spikes amidst years of bumper harvests. The study findings reveal that maize procurement and marketing behavior of the Government through the FRA contributed to major structural changes to the maize market: (1) A withdrawal from the market by commercial mills. By purchasing majority of the maize on the market, the FRA limited the need for commercial mills to access maize directly from the market. This reduced competition in the wholesaling sector and concentrated maize supply chain around the FRA; (2) Rationing of the FRA maize sold at subsidized prices to commercial mills. The FRA depots were unable to consistently meet the demand requirements of the commercial milling sector and as a result, some mills were prioritized in terms of receiving FRA maize. Mills that could not consistently access subsidized maize from the FRA were put at a comparative disadvantage; (3) Exit of the commercial farming sector from maize production. Between 2010 and 2013 commercial maize production in Zambia halved, from 300,000 to less than 150,000 metric tonnes. This was due to the price uncertainty created by FRA subsidies to commercial mills, which are the traditional markets for commercial farmers, as well as significant increase in smallholder production; and (4) Squeezing the informal processing sector out of the market. By procuring the majority of the available surplus and selling it at subsidized rates to a selected group of commercial mills, the informal market, including small-scale traders, retailers, and hammer mills, were limited in their ability to participate in the market. This in turn undermined the market channel most often used by poorer urban and rural households. These structural changes in the organization of Zambia’s maize market led to a decline in available maize supplies and reduced levels of private-sector competition making the market vulnerable to unanticipated demand shocks. Keywords: Maize, price spikes, bumper harvests, subsidies, markets, traders, agriculture, Zambia

Effects of socio-economic conditions of small-scale traders on quality of post harvest tilapia in Kisumu

The small - scale fisheries and fish trade sector is important in global and national economies by providing millions with income and consumers with food. Nile perch (Lates niloticus ), Nile tilapia ( Oreochromis niloticus ), and small cyprinid ( Rastrineobola argentea ) form the basis of commercial fishery in Lake Victoria. From 1997 to 2000, East Africa suffered a series of fish export bans due to contamination by Salmonella, cholera epidemics and use of chemicals in Lake Victoria. Kenya thereafter adopted hygiene requirements in European directive 91/493/EEC for fish and fish products. Kenya’s fish production from the lake declined from 180,000 metric tons in 2003 , down to 133,000 metric tons in 2010. Globally, 30% of total fish catch is lost through poor post harvest handling. The objectives of this study were to determine the socio - economic conditions of small - scale fish traders, to investigate hygienic practices in handling, storage and processing of fish, and to isolate and identify human pathogens in both fresh and processed fish sold in Kisumu markets. A structured questionnaire was used to get demographic, socio - economic, safety and quality practices information. Samples of fresh and processed fish were tested for Aerobic Plate Count, Coliform, Escherichia coli and Vibrio cholerae counts. Results revealed that women traders were 81% in number while men were 19% and most of the traders (40%) were aged between 26 and 35 years. The highest level of education attained by majority (51%) of the traders was primary level. The traders’ most frequent income was KES 200 - 399 (USD 3 to 5) a day which cannot sustain a family. Most traders (57%) had additional sources of income to subsidise their needs. Many traders lacked good transport, refrigeration facilities, water, toilet, waste disposal and rubbish disposal. Total plate count was above 10 6 per g which is the maximum allowed. Th e association between Total Plate Count and hygiene quality status of the samples was significant negatively at p value ≤ 0.001. Traders should be trained on hygiene requirements and economic skills for better practices to improve business performance.

Downgraded by Upgrading: Small-scale Traders, Urban Transformation and Spatial Reconfiguration in Post-reform Vietnam

Downgraded by Upgrading: Small-scale Traders, Urban Transformation and Spatial Reconfiguration in Post-reform Vietnam

The feasibility of ICT diffusion and use amongst rural women in South Africa

This study explores whether ICT use is feasible in the rural areas of South Africa. Using the survey method, women aged 16-60 were sampled to include: Small-scale traders (58; 29.0%); Housewives/homemakers (48; 24.0%); Farm employees (25; 12.5%); Domestic workers (18; 9.0%); Educators/teachers (16; 8.0%); Students (15; 7.5%), Entrepreneurs managing large-scale enterprises (3; 1.5%); Clerical workers (9; 4.5%); Community development workers (6; 3.0%) and Preachers (2; 1.0%). These 200 respondents formed the sampling size. Sampling data was obtained from Census household data of the magisterial districts of Umlalazi i.e. Eshowe, Amatikulu, Gigindlovu and Mtunzini. Using the snowball technique women respondents, directly and indirectly connected to each other, were identified, and consequently interviewed. The survey results indicate that access and exclusion are still predominant issues, as while a meager average of 11(5.5%) respondents use modern technologies such as the computer/internet, more than half (115: 57.5%) of the respondents surveyed face problems ranging from affordability, to distance and time. Additionally, there is a marked correlation between the respondents' level of education, type of ICTs' accessed and information needs and purposes. It was observed that singularly, ICTs are insufficient for significant benefits to emerge.

Gender relations and cross-border small trading in the Ukrainian–Romanian borderlands

European Union (EU) enlargement and the later shaping of its relationships with its new Eastern neighbours through the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) have had a significant impact on communities outside the EU’s borders. As the EU has sought to control flows of people, money and goods through these new borders, it has also become a destination for irregular migrants and small-scale traders from its eastern neighbours. This article draws upon participant observation in one such community in western Ukraine, where continuing levels of high unemployment and low wages and pensions drive dependence on flows of remittances from migrants to southern Europe, but also revenues from small-scale trade with neighbouring EU members, such as Romania. New forms of transnational mobility have emerged, which are not gender-neutral. The article asserts that, while hegemonic masculinities exist in both Ukrainian and Romanian communities, gender relations in Romania are restricted by sexualised discourses. As male and female Ukrainian traders interact with Romanian border officials and local distributors and intermediaries, hegemonic masculinities in Ukraine are re-affirmed and female traders are unable to advance and develop their trade in the same way as their male counterparts. In doing so, the article expands research on gender and transnationalism in post-enlargement Europe beyond migration and demonstrates not only how encounters at the EU’s borders are shaping gender relations in communities outside the EU, but that involvement in cross-border economic activities is determined by the gendered discourses and performance that take place at the border.

Millet transactions in market fairs, millet diversity and farmer welfare in Mali

AbstractAlthough farmers in the Malian Sahel depend on millet for survival, demand and supply constraints have impeded their use of certified seed. We use data collected from households, vendors and seed samples to test the way market purchases of grain and seed affect household food consumption and millet genetic diversity. Purchase of millet grain in markets contributes to food security, but reduces dietary diversity – suggesting that scarce cash was directed toward meeting staple food needs first. Farmers purchased millet grain for seed only in the site with riskier rainfall and smaller market fairs. Although they were more likely to purchase in markets where the genetic dissimilarity of seed was higher, purchasing seed in markets was negatively associated with on-farm diversity. Seed shortage rather than variety experimentation appears to be the motivation for seed purchase. Introducing certified seed in rural markets through small-scale traders will require the provision of market services and promotional efforts.