Innovation Trajectories in Honduras’ Coffee Value Chain. Public and Private Influence on the Use of New Knowledge and Technology among Coffee Growers

provided by Research Papers in Economics

INTERNATIONAL
JOURNAL ON
FOOD SYSTEM
DYNAMICS

Innovation Trajectories in Honduras’ Coffee Value Chain.

Public and Private Influence on the Use of New Knowledge
and Technology among Coffee Growers

Frank Hartwich¹, Ingrid Fromm², Gustavo Romero³

¹UNIDO, Vienna, Austria, ²Swiss College OfAgriculture, Switzerland, ³Escuela Agncola Panamericana, Zamorano, Honduras

[email protected]

Received March 2010, accepted September 2010, available online October 2010

ABSTRACT

In this paper, results from a study on the use of improved coffee production technology schemes among
smallholder coffee producers in three prominent coffee producing regions in Honduras are presented. The impact
of various schemes (trajectories) in which different agents influence the producers’ decision to use new
technologies was analyzed. In particular, there are differences in the influence of a) private coffee buying
organizations and b) government and public development agencies on the innovation behavior of coffee growers.
Drawing from network data that depict the internal and outbound connectedness of producers in three village
communities in main coffee producing zones in Honduras, tools of social network analysis were applied to find out
how interactions with certain agents, separately and cumulatively, has influenced their use of improved methods in
coffee production and marketing. The results suggest that there are significant differences in the way that various
providers of knowledge and technology, especially private buyers and development agencies, influence the farmers’
behavior towards innovation. The influence of buyers, according to the data, is focused on certification and quality
aspects, whereas development agents focus on improved agronomic practices. Farmers who communicate with the
extension branch of input providers tend to be more innovative. These results suggest that development programs
should take more seriously into account the role of private actors in innovation among agricultural producers and,
hence, design development programs in such a way to allow for collaboration with these agents.

Keywords: coffee production, innovation, upgrading, social networks, Honduras

1 Introduction

Enabling the participation of smallholder farmers in value addition has been the concern of many
development efforts. Particularly, the coffee value chain is a frequently studied case and there is
sufficient empirical evidence that inclusion of smallholders in the coffee value chain is possible but not an
easy task (Talbot, 1997; Gresser, Tickell 2002; Blowfield, 2003; Taylor, 2005). In particular, for small
producers to become involved in value chains, they not only need to become organizationally linked with
the various agents in the chain, e.g. buyers, certifiers and input and service providers, they also need to
improve the skills and technologies they use in production and marketing (Ponte, 2002). This requires a
process of diffusion of information, learning, absorption and adaptation to local conditions which
eventually leads to the “upgrading” of the methods farmers use in the production and marketing of their
products (Foster, Rosenzweig, 1995).

Traditionally, development theorists considered upgrading of innovation processes an easy thing to
achieve; training events and field trials as well as the extension of information and technologies to
farmers would automatically diffuse innovations, reason for which public extension and development

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