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



Frank Hartwich et al. / Int. J. Food System Dynamics 3 (2010) 237-251

agencies have been set up to provide these services. However, there is now much empirical evidence that
communication with a single extension agent is not a sufficient condition for innovation processes to
occur (Conley, Udry 2001). Agricultural producers as well as many other economic agents make their
decisions in response to various communications that bring together sufficient evidence about the
usefulness of an innovation, thus minimizing the risk of its failure. Therefore, in order to understand the
farmers decision to upgrade, one must not only focus on the traditional factors of adoption studies such
as the utility of the innovation, the costs of its application, and the endowment with resources that are
required for its application, but also the set of relationships that farmers use to get informed and learn
about the innovations at stake. In other words, the farmers’ embeddedness in social networks and the
sum of communications with actors in the value chain need to be taken in consideration in any attempt to
explain and foster processes of upgrading (Bandiera, Rasul 2006).

However, the dynamics of social networks of exchange of knowledge, learning, and building of confidence
for adopting innovations among resource-poor farmers in developing countries is still poorly understood
in general and for the case of upgrading in value chains, in particular, and few studies on the effects of
farmer connectedness on the adoption of innovations are available. In response, this paper seeks to
expand on emerging conceptual and methodological work on smallholder innovation processes in
developing countries and the role and impact of social networks and social capital on innovation
processes. The results from a study on the exchange of information among coffee producers in Honduras
as well as value-chain specific dynamics of technology and knowledge that influence the producers’
behavior towards innovation are presented. For two important coffee producing regions all important
providers of knowledge and technology on coffee production and primary processing were mapped,
regardless if they operate through development projects, buy coffee or simply dispose and distribute
information. Their interaction with farmers and how this has influenced the farmers’ behavior towards
upgrading and innovation was investigated.

The structure of this article is as follows. In section 2 insights from the study on the influence of
networking on the adoption of innovations among small scale farmers in developing countries was
discussed and some empirical evidence from the literature is presented. In Section 3, based on
information from a survey among agents in Honduras’ coffee value chain, schemes or paths of how
various public and private agents currently influence the adoption of new knowledge and technology
among coffee growers are described. These different schemes or paths are labeled as “innovation
trajectories”. In section 4 defines what innovation in coffee growing can consist on and present data
about the degree of innovativeness coffee growers have achieved in three communities in three
prominent coffee growing regions in Honduras. The properties of the networks of communication among
the growers and other agents in these three communities and among all the agents on a national level are
further described. At the end the findings are discussed and some policy recommendations from the
results are provided, also pinpointing the limitations in the interpretation of the results and suggesting
areas of further research work.

2 Social interaction and the role of change agents in fostering innovation and
upgrading: Evidence from literature

We take the perspective of the value chain as our starting point. A value chain can be understood as a
sequence of business relationships that allow the consequent addition of value as a commodity, such as
coffee, passes from one segment in the chain to the next reaching from primary production, over various
steps of transformation to the final consumer. However, though the value chain perspective provides an
appropriate framework to understand the types of actors, interactions and support services required to
let a product pass through the chain, it does not always explain how innovation and upgrading occurs.

Recent approaches to the adoption of innovations among farmers developed by scholars of the theory of
(national) innovation systems offer a nuanced understanding of how smallholders experiment and further
develop new knowledge and technologies in value chains based on processes of learning by doing and
learning from others in the context of complex social relationships (Leeuwis, 2004). In particular, farmers
require information on the possible effects and risks associated with the proposed innovation and options
for cost reduction selling the resulting products. They also need to get practical experience how best to
adopt and adapt the innovations in their specific environment and how to benefit from innovations, e.g.
through selling the resulting product on the local market. Both processes involve in intensive
communication with other farmers and people with knowledge on the innovation and associated effects
and potentials (Hartwich, Scheidegger, 2009). Often it is the combined effect of farmer to farmer
communication, the persuasion of various promoters, incentive mechanisms and social influence and
learning processes that finally modulate farmer’s adoption behavior.

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