Analysing price spreads and net margins of smallholder vegetable farmers in the southern Philippines

R.T. Aguinaldo, J.M.P. Sarmiento, L.N. Digal, C.Q. Balgos, D. Hall
The agri-food system is undergoing changes that create challenges for small-scale producers. In the Philippines, food retail and processing sectors modernise and concentrate on responding to increasing market requirements. Conversely, the production sector is fragmented, and many farmers struggle to respond to such changes. Price spread analysis was employed utilising time series data to validate these occurrences by examining the behaviour of farm price relative to wholesale and retail prices. Net margin analysis was also applied to analyse the profitability of smallholder farmers, utilising survey data of 204 vegetable farmers in the southern Philippines. Results show that farm prices increase faster than wholesale and retail prices due to increasing production costs. However, there are still opportunities for smallholder farmers to increase profitability. These include the application of the right mix of production inputs, attendance to production-related training, reduction in the production and marketing losses and quality grading.
Aguinaldo, R.T., Sarmiento, J.M.P., Digal, L.N., Balgos, C.Q. and Hall, D. (2016). Analysing price spreads and net margins of smallholder vegetable farmers in the southern Philippines. Acta Hortic. 1128, 271-276
DOI: 10.17660/ActaHortic.2016.1128.41
https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.2016.1128.41
farm price, profitability, retail price, wholesale price
English

Acta Horticulturae