Supervisors: Prof. Dr. S.W.F. Omta, Chair Group MST Prof. Dr. M.A.J.S. van Boekel, Chair Group PDQ Dr. J.L.F. Hagelaar, Chair Group MST Dr. Anita Linnemann, Chair Group PDQ Dr. Ousmane Coulibaly, IITA-Benin
Project term: October 2008 – October 2012
Sponsors: INREF and NUFFIC
Introduction
In accordance with the UN Millennium Development Goals, Benin is committed to achieve food security and reduce poverty by 50 % by the year 2015. Because Benin’s economy depends highly on agriculture, one of Benin’s strategies to reach this goal 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 by linking governance structure and channel choice to the quality and financial performance of the PSC actors in Benin.
Approach
1. Get an overview of the diversity in the organization of pineapple supply chains in Benin; 2. Assess the influence of transaction attributes and actors’ characteristics on governance structure and channel choice and how these affect the performance in pineapple supply chains in Benin; 3. Describe pineapple supply chain in Ghana to identify best practices for improvement of Beninese pineapple quality and financial performance; 4. Develop co-innovation strategies to improve the present PSC in Benin using best practices as deduced from Ghana.
