Thesis, Undergraduate (B.S. Agribusiness Economics)-- University of the Philippines, Mindanao

Currently, the cacao industry is faced with the growing demand and low supply of cacao in the country, which has opened doors to foreign cacao companies to offer contract farming arrangements. In the municipality of San Isidro, Davao del Norte, the farmers are presently in direct selling of their cacao produce to direct buyers in the area. To determine whether it is possible for these companies to attract contractees to engage with their contract offer, the study aimed to assess the (advantage, disadvantage, undecided) perceptions of these farmers towards contract farming arrangements, together with the identification of the factors that affect these perceptions, which will be used to analyze their willingness to engage with the scheme. A total of 150 farmers from 5 barangays of San Isidro were interviewed. Multinomial logistic regression was employed. The results show that the increase in the years of cacao planting and the number of cacao trees of the farmers are significant for him to perceive contract farming as an advantage. This means that the experience and the investment of the farmer to cacao production would greatly affect his willingness to engage to contract farming. The land size for cacao and sales for cacao on the other hand would give the farmers a perception of contract farming as less advantageous, due to the current poor cacao production of farmers in the municipality. Despite the fact that most of them are undecided towards contract farming, considering that most of these factors are set to be settled in a contract farming scheme and many are willing to increase their production in cacao, it is more likely that the companies will be able to acquire farmers from this area. For further research, the decision of farmers, aside from their perception must be considered.