Blueberries in winter, quinoa for lunch, and Fairtrade coffee – Global food trends and implications for smallholder farmers
Final Report Abstract
All research objectives of the fellowship were met (modifications are described below). The first paper (WP1 of the proposal) was implemented as planned and consolidates the evidence on the impacts of sustainability standards for smallholder farmers in developing countries using meta-analyses and meta-regressions. The second WP also examines the implications of sustainability standards but focusses on cooperative effects using primary data from a large number of cooperatives. Unlike originally planned, data were collected in Cote d’Ivoire instead of Ethiopia (due to the political and safety situation in Ethiopia at that time). Further, a worker survey was added to the farm household survey. Three papers were developed. Two focus on farmers, the other is forthcoming in Ecological Economics. The third paper (published in Nature Sustainability) focusses on farm and cooperative workers. The objective of the third WP was to use secondary data to examine the implications of food trends and price volatility, focusing on Peru. Three projects emerged from this initial idea as more and better data became available. As a result, the narrow focus on quinoa was discarded. The first paper (under review) uses secondary data from Peru to examine the effects of sustainability certification for large and small farmers. The second paper (published in PNAS) uses secondary data from five countries to explore welfare implications of contract farming for smallholder farmers. The third paper (in progress) examines the effect of price volatility on child and household welfare using secondary panel data from four countries. Further, several other projects were implemented.
Publications
- (2020) Fairtrade, Agrochemical Input Use, and Effects on Human Health and the Environment. Ecological Economics 176 106718
Sellare, Jorge; Meemken, Eva-Marie; Qaim, Matin
(See online at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2020.106718) - 2019: Do sustainability standards benefit smallholder farmers also when accounting for cooperative effects? Evidence from Cote d’Ivoire. American Journal of Agricultural Economics 51, 1–15
Sellare, J., Meemken, E.-M., Kouame, C.N., Qaim, M.
(See online at https://doi.org/10.1002/ajae.12015) - 2019: Effects of Fairtrade on the livelihoods of poor rural workers. Nature Sustainability 2, 635–642
Meemken, E.-M., Sellare, J., Kouame, C.N., Qaim, M.
(See online at https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-019-0311-5) - 2020 Smallholder farmers and contract farming in developing countries. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 117, 259-264
Meemken, E.-M. and Bellemare, M.F.
(See online at https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1909501116) - 2020: Do smallholder farmers benefit from sustainability standards? A systematic review and meta-analysis. Global Food Security 26, 100373
Meemken, E.-M.
(See online at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gfs.2020.100373)
