DAPA-Linking Farmers to Market’s article wins an award from Banco de la República

DAPA-Linking Farmers to Market’s article wins an award from Banco de la República

CIAT’s Linking Farmers to Market’s (LFM) article, written by Rafael Isidro Parra-Peña (LFM-CIAT), Mark Lundy (LFM-CIAT) and Barry Reilly (U. of Sussex), has received an award from the Banco de la República.

Therefore, their research paper will be published in a book: “El desarrollo equitativo, competitivo y sostenible del sector agropecuario en Colombia” (fair, competitive and sustainable development of the Colombian agricultural sector).

The book has as objective to obtain a better understanding of the development of the Colombian agricultural sector. Several empirical articles about rural development attended this major competitive call.

Once the LFM article “Do violent incidents affect the duration of agribusiness contracts of smallholder farmers? Evidence from Colombia”, was selected as one of the winner, the 8th of April, 2016, Rafael Parra-Peña, from the LFM DAPA team, participated in the seminar organized by the Banco de la República and Corporación Andina de Fomento (CAF).

Dr. Carlos Gustavo Cano, Deputy Director of Banco de la Republica opened the seminar with the following words (in spanish):

Palabras lanzamiento Seminario: El desarrollo equitativo, competitivo y sostenible del sector agropecuario en Colombia

The main editors of the book are: Carlos Gustavo Cano with the collaboration of Ana María Iregui, María Teresa Ramírez and Ana María Tribín (lead economist researchers at Banco de la República).

Parra-Peña, Reilly and Lundy, to sum up, using survival models based on the duration of commercial agreements from a unique dataset of productive alliances within the rural productive partnership project (PAAP according to the Spanish acronym), found that violence has a major negative impact on the survival of these agribussines contracts for smallholders farmers.

(In Spanish)

La violencia afecta la duración de los agro negocios de los pequeños agricultores en Colombia?

Resumen

Este documento presenta un análisis novedoso sobre la duración de unos acuerdos comerciales agrícolas, definida como la continuidad de una sociedad contractual establecida entre unas organizaciones de pequeños productores y unos compradores, y su relación con algunas manifestaciones específicas de violencia. Este estudio utilizó un conjunto de datos único sobre acuerdos comerciales que proviene de los archivos de un proyecto público cuyo objetivo es establecer relaciones comerciales entre pequeños productores y compradores formales; el Proyecto de Apoyo a Alianzas Productivas – PAAP – en Colombia. El enfoque empírico utiliza modelos de duración no paramétricos, semiparamétricos y paramétricos, y de tiempo discreto. Según la evidencia empírica la presencia de violencia aumenta la tasa de riesgo de falla de los acuerdos comerciales. En particular, la presencia de terrorismo durante el año inicial de los acuerdos comerciales parece ser una de las causas principales. Sin embargo, cuando se permite que los incidentes de violencia varíen con el tiempo, las acciones subversivas, provocadas principalmente por las guerrillas, surgen como la principal causa de las interrupciones comerciales.

After the different presentations the the panel moderator asked: Will the peace agreements of the Havana, once implemented, solve the political economic problems of exclusion (to credit, markets access and contracts enforcement)?. To this question Rafael responded that indeed it would be easier for producers to maintain contracts once the violence disappears. However, the agricultural sector would still need to deploy the right public policies to promote agribusiness in a post-conflict context. He mentioned the need for polices that improve not only individual farmers’ livelihoods, but also the ones that promote cooperative work of smallholder farmers and the use of common resources to supply the market needs, thus, policies allowing farmers to overcome poverty.

By: Coco Van Megen and Rafael Parra-Peña.