| In emerging markets for high-value food products in developing countries, processing companies search for efficient ways to source raw material of consistent quality. One widely embraced approach is contract farming. But relatively little is known about the appropriate design of contracts, especially in a small farm context. We use the example of the Vietnamese dairy sector to analyze the effectiveness of existing contracts between a processor and smallholder farmers in terms of incentivizing the production of high quality milk. A framed field experiment is conducted to evaluate the impact of two incentive instruments, a price penalty for low quality and a bonus for consistent high quality milk, on farmers’ investment in quality-improving inputs.... |
