The Relationship among Farmers’ Embeddedness in Value Networks and their Innovation. A Ugandan coffee value chain perspective

The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship among farmers’ embeddedness in value networks and their innovation. Many developing countries in Sub-Saharan Africa have problems setting up efficient and effective food systems. Smallholder farmers deal with uncertain markets, lack of farmer organizations, and lack of infrastructure. Farmers are heterogeneously embedded into value networks, which results to heterogeneous access to initial resources. Via semi-structured interviews data has been collected in the coffee value network in Manafwa, Uganda. By scoring the farmers on the features reciprocity, resource diversification, and channel diversification more information can be obtained on the embeddedness of a farmer. Defining the farmers in different clusters according to their characteristics and embeddedness leads to different value network maps of the heterogeneous embedded farmers. The variables location, gender, age, and farm size do have influence on the embeddedness of a farmer in the value network. Linking the way how farmers are embedded in the value network with the innovation constraints they face leads to new insights on how to organize the coffee system more efficient and effective.

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