The benefits of geographical indication certification through farmer organizations on low-income farmers: the case of Hoa Vang sticky rice in Vietnam

Abstract

Origin labeling and quality upgrading through farmer organizations have been considered as solutions to reduce transaction costs and improve market bargaining power. This paper explores whether belonging to a farmer organization that improves and signals quality can help increase yields and household incomes of small-scale farmers for a specific quality product, Hoa Vang sticky rice in Vietnam. The paper is based on primary data on 185 households collected in 2013 and on 149 households collected in 2015. Different econometric methods were applied to investigate the effect based on rice yield, rice income and household income as the outcome variables. The results show that membership of farmer organization does not significantly improve household income compared to non-membership. However, members of farmer organizations have less resources in terms of land and inputs than non-members. These results suggest that the economic results achieved by farmers with fewer opportunities to access markets are similar to those obtained by farmers with more opportunities thanks to the involvement of farmer organizations in marketing. The specificities of the Hoa Vang sticky rice are still not reflected in higher farmer sales prices and incomes. More dialogue between farmer organizations and their customers is thus required, as well as better public control of labeling fraud.

Factors affecting decisions of farmers to produce geographical indication dry beans: a case from Turkey

“…It is anticipated that the yield obtained by the farmers will increase as they adapt to the production conditions in the future. A similar study conducted by Wang et al (2021) found the yield per hectare of the farmers producing GI rice (3.52 t/ha) to be lower than that of those producing traditional rice (3.96 t/ha).…”

“…In recent years, the farmers in the region have been cultivating sugar beans using the seeds procured from the neighboring provinces, which have a higher yield, rather than the local Kelkit sugar beans seeds known locally as "pink eye, " however, sugar beans grown from the seeds procured from the neighboring provinces have different characteristics to those grown from the local seeds, which are elliptical and pinkish in color (Anonymous, 2020). There have been numerous studies of foreign origin analyzing the importance of geographical indications for the rural development and their effect on increasing farmer income (Jena et al, 2012(Jena et al, , 2017Mesic et al, 2017;Ardana, 2019;Sitorus et al, 2020;Poetschki et al, 2021;Wang et al, 2021;Crescenzi et al, 2022). Although there have been domestic studies into the contribution of the GI products to the rural economy investigating their impact on sustainability (Özsoy, 2015;Arslan-Pauli, 2016;Pektaş et al, 2018;Arıkan and Taşçioğlu, 2019;Doğanlı, 2020;Everest et al, 2022) and analyzing the economic impact of the dry beans production (Direk et al, 2002;Çiftçi et al, 2012;Önder et al, 2012;Berk and Güngör, 2016;Efeoğlu et al, 2016;Kan et al, 2019;Küzeci et al, 2019;Ayçiçek and Karakaya, 2022), there have been no field studies to date analyzing the effects of the GI agricultural products on the farmers.…”

The impact of homestead system reform on farmers’ well-being: an empirical study based on the structural equation model

“…The land located in the peripheral urban and rural areas has gained a lot of value-added income because of the location advantage; if this is an opportunity to reform the homestead system, make full use of the differential rent, and keep up with the pace of urbanization, it will be possible to improve the property income of farmers to a greater extent [16][17][18]. Therefore, we should take the homestead as an entry point to reform and innovate the homestead system so that farmers can improve their land property income [19][20].…”