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DETERMINANTS OF SMALL-SCALE MACADAMIA NUT PRODUCTIVITY IN ZIMBABWE: AN ORDINAL REGRESSION MODEL ANALYSIS
Views:80This study determines the factors influencing macadamia nut productivity among smallholder farmers in Zimbabwe's Chipinge District. Despite favourable agro-ecological conditions, smallholder productivity (1.89t/ha) significantly lags behind commercial farmers (3.9t/ha) and global benchmarks (7.17t/ha). Using cross-sectional data from 284 registered smallholder farmers collected in 2023-2024, ordinal regression analysis identified critical productivity determinants. Results revealed that farming experience significantly increases productivity, with each additional year of experience raising the log odds of achieving higher productivity by 18.4% (p<0.05). Labour availability positively influences productivity (p<0.05), particularly during labour-intensive operations like pruning and harvesting. Farm resilience score, capturing innovations that reduce field losses and improve market access, exhibited a strong positive effect (p<0.01). Unexpectedly, financial management skills (FMS) and risk management skills (RMS) demonstrated significant negative effects (p<0.05), suggesting a "formalization penalty" where sophisticated management systems incur overhead costs that fail to yield proportional returns in contexts of pervasive market failure, price volatility, and liquidity constraints. The study concludes that while farm experience, labour capacity, and resilience-building investments enhance productivity, the effectiveness of formal management skills is constrained by fundamental market structure failures. Policy recommendations emphasize capacity building in experiential learning, labour skill development, resilience-enhancing technologies, and most critically the market structure reforms to enable formal management systems to function effectively. Addressing transaction costs, information asymmetry, and capital access constraints must precede investments in sophisticated farm management training.
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THE INFLUENCE OF GOVERNANCE ON FOOD LOSS AND WASTE: A TANZANIAN PINEAPPLE VALUE CHAIN PERSPECTIVE
Views:77Food loss and waste remain a substantial challenge in agricultural value chains, particularly in developing countries. This study examines the influence of governance of food loss and waste within the pineapple value chain in Tanzania. Using qualitative methods, data were collected in Dar es Salaam. Geita, Morogoro, and Pwani regions through focus group discussions, interviews, and observations. The study mapped actors and explored the role of governance, power dynamics, and coordination, drawing on resource dependence and institutional theories to explain how actor relationships, power imbalances, and institutional influences shape food loss and waste. Three types of governance structures were revealed- Spot market, captive, and relational structures, affecting food loss differently. In the captive governance structures, pre-finance arrangements lock farmers into selling only to specific traders, often leading to significant on-farm losses when market conditions shift. Spot markets, on the other hand, generate losses when harvested fruits do not meet the informal standards set by buyers, such as size, ripeness, and other physical attributes, due to limited market information. Weak coordination, information asymmetry, and power imbalances among value chain actors contribute to substantial food loss and waste. Main challenges faced by farmers include poor access to markets, financial constraints, and weak bargaining power. Institutional gaps, including weak regulatory frameworks and inadequate support from government and private sector, exacerbate inefficiencies. The study emphasizes that governance plays a central role in shaping food loss and waste. Strengthening farmers' associations, improving market linkages, and addressing institutional gaps are critical for reducing food loss and waste and increasing value chain resilience.
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Analysis of economic issues relating to the dairy sector, with emphasis on price transmission
61-70Views:364The dramatic decline in consumption after 1990 was an important problem during the analysis of the sector. Even today, consumption is still below the degree that was before the political change, and significantly lags behind the EU level.The importance of this topic is emphasized by the fact that surplus milk could be marketed through the increased domestic consumption; this would create a more stable and calculable situation for farmers. Therefore, I considered it important to reveal what factors and by what shares influence the consumption of milk and dairy products. The relationship, time series and cross-sectional analysis based on national and international databases demonstrate the relationship between the consumption of milk and dairy products and the other determining factors of consumption in Hungary and in the EU-25 through diagrams. I draw the conclusion that there is a medium correlation between the development of the economy, the higher income level and the consumption of milk and dairy products. Just before our EU accession, the dairy sector was one of the most critical industries of Hungarian agriculture, which is why I chose this for my analysis. I regard as a new scientific result the econometric analysis of the asymmetric market conditions in the price transmission approach within our dairy sector between 1995 and 2003. I confirmed and quantified that the market is under an oligopoly and defined the direction of price adjustment. Furthermore, I regard as a new result in the price transmission analysis (also published in the article published with Dr. József Tóth), that the three possible dimensions (elasticity, a symmetry relations,lag) are analysed simultaneously.Therefore,a more sophisticated picture is given on price transmission. The theoretical advantages and disadvantages are verified by an example of a vertical coordination based on the horizontal cooperation in the dairy sector (Alföldi Tej Ltd).
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