TY - JOUR

T1 - Adoption and impact of black pepper certification in India

AU - Parvathi, Priyanka

AU - Waibel, Herman

PY - 2015/5

Y1 - 2015/5

N2 - This paper analyses the adoption of organic farming under fair trade marketing practices and its impact on household income of black pepper (piper nigrum) farmers in India. We use a set of panel data, collected from 300 smallholder farmers who plant black pepper as their main crop in 2010 and 2011. The aim of the paper is to investigate the use of panel data for adoption models using the case of organic and fair trade certified black pepper in Idukki district, Kerala, India. We compare two adoption models: (i) a multinomial cross-section logit applied for both survey years separately and (ii) a panel multinomial random effects logit model. The panel adoption model which allows capturing unobserved heterogeneity in adoption decisions was found to be superior over the cross section models. We find that farm size and market distance are the major factors that influence adoption. To measure the differential gain of adoption, we applied propensity score matching with multiple treatment effects accompanied by sensitivity analysis to test robustness of impact results. Results show that certified organic farmers have a significantly higher income but participation in fair trade regimes does not generate additional monetary benefits.

AB - This paper analyses the adoption of organic farming under fair trade marketing practices and its impact on household income of black pepper (piper nigrum) farmers in India. We use a set of panel data, collected from 300 smallholder farmers who plant black pepper as their main crop in 2010 and 2011. The aim of the paper is to investigate the use of panel data for adoption models using the case of organic and fair trade certified black pepper in Idukki district, Kerala, India. We compare two adoption models: (i) a multinomial cross-section logit applied for both survey years separately and (ii) a panel multinomial random effects logit model. The panel adoption model which allows capturing unobserved heterogeneity in adoption decisions was found to be superior over the cross section models. We find that farm size and market distance are the major factors that influence adoption. To measure the differential gain of adoption, we applied propensity score matching with multiple treatment effects accompanied by sensitivity analysis to test robustness of impact results. Results show that certified organic farmers have a significantly higher income but participation in fair trade regimes does not generate additional monetary benefits.

KW - Fair trade

KW - Kerala

KW - Organic agriculture

KW - Panel multinomial logit using gllamm

KW - Propensity score matching

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84937959504&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.22004/ag.econ.210312

DO - 10.22004/ag.econ.210312

M3 - Article

AN - SCOPUS:84937959504

VL - 54

SP - 133

EP - 161

JO - Quarterly Journal of International Agriculture

JF - Quarterly Journal of International Agriculture

SN - 0049-8599

IS - 2

ER -