Production and marketing contracts govern 36 percent of the value of U.S. agricultural production, up from 12 percent in 1969. Contracts are now the primary method of handling sales of many livestock commodities, including milk, hogs, and broilers, and of major crops such as sugar beets, fruit, and processing tomatoes. [...]

In the absence of access to formal credit, informal contracts with independent investors give the small ranchers of the Lower Amazon an acceptable means through which to surmount the high investment hurdle of starting a cattle herd. These contracts - called sociedades - allow small ranchers to raise an outside [...]

The relationship between farmers and the food industry ranges from carrying out spot market transactions to complete integration, characterized as vertical integration. In this study, the relationship between farmers and the food industry in Turkey has been investigated focusing on contract farming. The Turkish food industry is a promising sector, [...]

Codes of conduct covering the employment conditions of Southern producers exporting to European markets mushroomed throughout the 1990s, especially in the horticulture sector linking UK and European supermarkets with export firms in Africa. The majority of employment in this sector is "informal," a significant proportion of which is female. This [...]

Globalisation in many rural parts of the developing world is leading to an increase in contract farming arrangements. Under these arrangements, landowners or tenants have contracts with agribusiness marketing and/or processing firms who specify prices, timing, quality and quantity/acreage of the produce to be delivered. Workers employed by contract producers tend to experience poor [...]

This study by ACIAR examines the experiences of agribusiness firms and smallholders in Indonesia participating in contract farming arrangements. It provides an introduction to background, theory and practice of contract farming and then presents two in-depth case studies of contract farming in Bali and Lombok. The study finds [...]

Contract farming, has in one form or another, been practiced since time immemorial and is a common feature of commercializing agriculture in developing countries as well as in developed countries. Its pre-eminence in developing countries is attributed to a response in the trend towards coordination of agricultural production and processing [...]

This paper examines the rationale, practice, and problems of contract farming in vegetable crops in the agriculturally developed Indian Punjab which has faced the problem of sustainability of growth since the early 1980s. It is found that agribusiness firms deal with relatively large producers and their contracts, which are [...]

An agency model of contracts used in California's processing-tomato industry is estimated in three stages. We first estimate growers' stochastic production possibilities, and then, for a given vector of preference parameters, compute an optimal compensation schedule. Finally, we compare computed compensations with actual compensations and choose preference parameters to minimise [...]

This article examines the social effects of contract farming of export horticulture among smallholders in Meru District, Kenya. During the 1980s and 1990s, contracting was popularized by donors and governments alike as a way to reduce poverty and increase opportunities for self–employment in rural areas. Considerable research has documented the [...]