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Economic improvement of Queen pineapple farmers through production innovations and marketing strategies
Dissertation Abstract:
This dissertation examines ways to improve the economic condition of Queen pineapple through production innovations and marketing strategies. Pineapple cultivation provides sustainable livelihood to many smallholder farmers in developing countries like the Philippines. The number of farmers engaged in the Queen pineapple industry in the country is small compared to other pineapple varieties due to limiting factors such as insufficiency in the capital, lack of technical know-how, poor post-harvest handling and marketing skills, coupled with a poor network, infrastructure, and access to credit programs which result to overall low productivity.
This dissertation aims to fill the gap by focusing on the production and marketing segment of the pineapple value chain. It aims to assess the traditional production practices of the farmers, identifies productivity levels in land labor and capital, and compares this to production innovations to provide baseline information on added value and encourage adoption to increase productivity. Also, it aims to identify the profitability of existing marketing practices and the profit share among the marketing players to determine which channel is more productive for farmers and what factors affect channel selection.
This dissertation presented data from a survey conducted from January to March 2022. The selection of samples was made by location. A total of 96 farmers and 32 buyers were interviewed using a semi-structured questionnaire. Descriptive statistics were used to present relevant frequency, percentage, and average data. Productivity was measured based on the cost and revenue analysis of traditional and production innovations and the input and output ratio of land labor and capital.
The marketing segment's profitability was measured by calculating the marketing costs, net profit, and margin per channel. The Chi-square statistics were used to test the influence of socioeconomic variables on the farming systems and marketing channels. Further, Fisher's exact test was used to determine the association of socioeconomic variables to the poverty threshold.
Results revealed that the poverty threshold is influenced by educational status, household size, and pineapple cultivation area. Production innovations increased land, labor, and capital productivity and could bail farmers out of poverty. While in marketing, financial pressures hinder most pineapple farmers from choosing the most profitable channel. Quick cash was identified as the primary factor in selecting marketing channels. A significant relationship relative to marketing channels was traced to the interplay of the following key elements: gender, civil status, location, and sources of income. Profitability analysis dictates that the optimum channel for farmers is the direct channel, but it requires higher capital for added marketing costs. Income analysis showed that most farmer respondents lived below the poverty threshold.
This dissertation proposes five measures to enhance productivity in the production and marketing of pineapple, such as: Expansion of production areas through multi or integrated cropping or adopting production innovations for single-cropping; Adopting direct marketing channels to eliminate marketing layers; Seeking/maintaining off-farm jobs to augment income and hire farm labor but invest in direct marketing; Regularly seek government assistance/support/in terms of new technologies, capacity training, and seminar; Encourage the participation and support of private investors for the pineapple industry's value chain; and Adopt extension strategies such as: Establish demo/model farms to encourage farmers to adopt innovations; Conduct season-long training to improve the farming skills of farmers; Provision of techno guide in the local language; and Provide credit programs with low interest/staggered release of loans based on farm activities.
Through the whole process, this dissertation makes two original contributions to the literature: the economic evaluation of traditional and production innovations, the productivity level, the profitability of marketing channels, and factors affecting channel selection.