Working Paper

Working Paper 40: The groundnuts fairtrade arrangement and its spillover effects on agricultural commercialisation and household welfare outcomes

Abstract

This working paper examines the Fairtrade groundnut arrangement – when the Mchinji Area Small Farmers Association (MASFA) sold its groundnuts through the National Association of Smallholder Farmers of Malawi (NASFAM) from 2007 to 2011. The authors test a unique panel data set of smallholder farmers to determine whether there are any spillover effects on small-scale agricultural commercialisation and its impact on household welfare for smallholder farmers that were not part of the Fairtrade arrangement in Mchinji District. This work is part of the APRA (Agricultural Policy Research Policy in Africa) Programme