Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/190042 
Year of Publication: 
2017
Series/Report no.: 
WIDER Working Paper No. 2017/197
Publisher: 
The United Nations University World Institute for Development Economics Research (UNU-WIDER), Helsinki
Abstract: 
The focus of this paper is the role played in rural contexts by contract farming agreements between smallholders and private investors. These contracts can take different forms, but in general are agreements under which producers commit to supply produce to a buyer firm. They are - at least on paper - at the centre of agrarian policies in Mozambique, through the Strategic Plan for the Development of the Agricultural Sector 2011-2020. Studies on the effect of these contracts on producers usually find out an increase in income, but the effect is still unclear with respect to other variables. The focus of this paper is on contracts' effects - in the Mozambican case - on food security. We may expect contrasting effects to be at work: on the one hand, the effects of increased income, while, on the other, the effects of giving up food production and of monopsonistic market relations. This paper exploits a panel dataset (2002-2005) collected by the Mozambican Ministry of Agriculture among a nationally representative sample of rural households. Overall, the main findings of the paper indicate that selection in contracts is the main driver of the observed differences.
Subjects: 
contract farming
food security
Mozambique
propensity score matching
JEL: 
Q13
O13
C21
C23
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
ISBN: 
978-92-9256-423-0
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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