Thesis, Undergraduate (BS Agribusiness Economics) -- U. P. in Mindanao

The pressures imposed by the increasing number of institutional buyers such as supermarkets, food processors and fast food chains continue to affect the Philippine vegetable industry. These institutional buyers have high demands on volume and quality. However, smallholder farmers have difficulty in penetrating these markets because of the lack of knowledge and skills to take action on demand variability and supply problems. Collective action through the clustering approach is one of the strategies identified for helping the farmers respond to the dynamic changes in the food retail industry. Clustering is a strategy wherein vegetable farmers group together based on their territory and commodity to improve their farming and entrepreneurial skills and increase their income. This study examined if the collective action of farmers through the clustering approach have contributed significantly in helping smallholder vegetable farmers to improve their production and marketing schemes. A comparison between two types of working arrangements in Barangay Songco, Lantapan was conducted. These include the case of the PAGLAMBU-Songco bell pepper cluster and the case of other individual bell pepper farmers. The two groups were compared according to their production and marketing schemes, productivity and income. Results have shown that both income and productivity of the two types of working arrangement does not statistically differ. However, the average income and productivity of the cluster members is greater than the individual bell pepper farmers. Hence, this means that the cluster members survived better than the individual farmers considering the changes in the weather conditions and high incidence of pest and diseases during the period of production. Moreover, results also have shown that cluster members have an advantage compared to individual bell pepper farmers on other substantial benefits such as technical assistance, knowledge on production techniques, access to loans and linkage to food processing companies.