Djalal Arinloye

Creating value-adding co-innovations in pineapple supply chains in Benin by aligning governance structure and chain choice

A.A.D.D (Djalal) Arinloyé

djala.arinloye@wur.nl

Supervisors:

Prof. Dr. S.W.F. Omta, MST, WUR
Prof. Dr. M.A.J.S. van Boekel, PDQ, WUR
Dr. J.L.F. Hagelaar, MST, WUR
Dr. Anita Linnemann, PDQ, WUR

Dr. Ousmane Coulibaly, IITA-Benin

Project term:

October 2008 – October 2012

Sponsors:

INREF & NUFFIC

Introduction

Benin is a West African country with an economy highly agricultural sector dependant (more than 70% of GDP). One of the strategies to reach the Millennium Development Goals of achieving food security and reduce poverty by 50 % by the year 2015 is to stimulate the development of new crops, like pineapple. Over the past decade pineapple production has been growing rapidly, based on a strong increase of local, urban and regional demand, and a relative success of a very few agricultural and trade entrepreneurs in serving niche markets. The stringent quality requirements make the export of pineapple to Europe low in quantity (only 2% of total production). Moreover, the fact that pineapple production follows a two-year cycle requires a high investment level, which is often beyond the financial capacity of the individual smallholder.

Aim

The PhD project aims to contribute to the central objectives of the CoQA-Project (www.coqa.nl) by linking governance structure (GS) and channel choice to the quality and economic performance of the pineapple supply chain (PSC) actors in Benin.

Research

A case study approach has been used to investigate the GS and barriers for smallholders’ development in the PSC in Benin. The research findings indicate a limited institutional support to the PSC. The most dominant type of GS was the spot market. Recently, farmers, traders and exporters have developed outgrowing schemes to enhance the participation of small-scale producers in the PSC to fill this gap of limited institutional support and reduce transaction costs Using a multivariate probit model research also show that farmers involved in the outgrowing schemes GS are less likely to be in another type of GS; showing the specificity and exclusivity of this type of transaction arrangement in the PSC. Several factors affect the choice of a GS. These including the specificity of the investment, the transaction connectedness, the market stability, the availability of institutional support and market attributes, the trust and commitment, experience in pineapple farming, farm size, farmer’s bargaining power and dynamic capacities

Future research

The future research will focus on (1) assessing the influence of transaction attributes and actors’ characteristics on governance structure and channel choice and (2) how these affect the quality and economic performance in pineapple supply chains in Benin. There is ongoing research on describing pineapple supply chain in Ghana to identify best practices for improvement of Beninese pineapple quality and economic performance. We will also Develop co-innovation strategies to improve the present PSC in Benin using best practices as deduced from Ghana.

References

1- Arinloye et al. Governance structure and barriers for smallholders’ development in agri-food chains: Evidence from the pineapple supply chain in Benin. Submitted
2- Arinloye et al. Multiple governance choices in the pineapple supply chain in Benin: An application of the transaction cost theory. Submitted