A perceived change in the organizational focus of American agriculture has given rise to the increased use of the term industrialization. Essentially, this change is viewed as a movement from a homogeneous commodity system to one emphasizing product differentiation (Urban, (1991)). Movement toward increased product differentiation is associated with [...]

This paper reviews the experience of contract farming and outgrower schemes for five agricultural tree crops: cocoa, rubber, palm oil, coffee and tea. The primary objective of the paper is to draw lessons from this experience to inform similar schemes with tree crops. Based on a review of the literature, [...]

The enforcement of contracts is necessary for efficient exchange and investment in economic activities. Contracts can be enforced through a variety of mechanisms, both public and private. However, in many developing and transitional countries these public institutions are either absent or ineffective in ensuring contract enforcement. Under such conditions, private [...]

This study has five chapters. Chapter one serves as an introduction. Chapter 2 presents a short review of integration, vertical coordination concepts, vertical coordination theories and contract farming. The general overview of food industries and rather detailed information about contract farming both in Turkey and the USA are presented in [...]

This paper demonstrates how contract farming functions as an economic institution and explores the causes of the observed variation in the scale of outgrower production in Latin America. We outline how market imperfections and transaction costs influence the decision of agroprocessing firms to contract-out, vertically integrate, or use spot markets [...]

The marriage of contract farming and farmer cooperation has the potential for increasing access to new market opportunities and services required to support smallholder intensification. Cooperation often works best where farmer groups are contractually linked to input and output markets. However, there are some constraints to the development of [...]

Structuring contracts to share risk in light of incentiove problems is the central premise of contract theory , yet the risk sharing implications have rarely been thoroughly tested using micro-leve contract data. In this article we test the major implication of a principal-agent model of contracts using detailed data on [...]

When the Thai agriculture has gradually changed from export of raw materials to export of more value added goods through the development of agroindustries since the Sixth National Economic and Social Development Plan, contract farming is seen as a promising means of achieving fair benefit for both farmer producers and [...]

It has been widely argued recently that agriculture is undergoing a process of vertical integration with allied industries. One of the worldwide ways of vertical integration in agriculture is contract farming. Contract farming is a continually evolving process. Worldwide applications of contract farming have shown that the terms of contracts [...]