Rutsaert Pieter, Chamberlin Jordan, Oluoch Kevin Ong'are, Kitoto Victor Ochieng, Donovan Jason
International Maize and Wheat Improvement Centre (CIMMYT), P.O. Box 1041, Nairobi, 00621 Kenya.
International Maize and Wheat Improvement Centre (CIMMYT), Texcoco, Mexico.
Food Secur. 2021;13(6):1379-1391. doi: 10.1007/s12571-021-01181-9. Epub 2021 Jun 26.
The expansion of agro-dealers into remote areas can be seen as conducive to more smallholders adopting new technologies and inputs, to include improved seed and fertilizer. However, lower travel costs may be offset by agro-dealer decisions on stocking and pricing, reflecting both travel time from wholesale markets as well as the level of competition in localized areas. This paper investigates the geographical distribution of agro-dealers and related patterns of local market competition on the availability and prices of maize seed and fertilizer. We use a unique census of agro-dealers in eight districts of Tanzania ( = 299) which maps distribution points for agricultural inputs in these areas. Results suggested that despite a high number of agro-dealers, almost 30% of farmers lived more than an hour travel time from at least one agro-dealer. Instead of wide geographical coverage, agro-dealers tended to be found in clusters, with strong variation in cluster sizes between different districts. Overall, more remote agro-dealers faced less competition, resulting in fewer stocked product choices and charging higher prices to customers, even after controlling for travel time from district headquarters. Remote farmers are disadvantaged in their uptake of new technologies and critical production inputs due to lack of competition among agro-dealers. Our results suggest that highly aggregated and/or simplified measures of market access fail to reflect important heterogeneity in the market access conditions faced by farmers; a better understanding of distribution networks and competition is needed.
农业经销商向偏远地区的扩张可被视为有利于更多小农户采用新技术和投入品，包括改良种子和化肥。然而，较低的运输成本可能会被农业经销商在库存和定价方面的决策所抵消，这既反映了从批发市场的运输时间，也反映了当地的竞争程度。本文研究了农业经销商的地理分布以及当地市场竞争模式对玉米种子和化肥的可得性及价格的影响。我们利用了坦桑尼亚八个地区（共299家）农业经销商的独特普查数据，绘制了这些地区农业投入品的分销点地图。结果表明，尽管农业经销商数量众多，但近30%的农民距离至少一家农业经销商的行程时间超过一小时。农业经销商并非广泛分布，而是倾向于集中分布，不同地区的集群规模差异很大。总体而言，即使在控制了距离地区总部的行程时间之后，偏远地区的农业经销商面临的竞争也较少，导致库存产品选择较少，向客户收取的价格较高。由于农业经销商之间缺乏竞争，偏远地区的农民在采用新技术和关键生产投入品方面处于劣势。我们的研究结果表明，高度汇总和/或简化的市场准入衡量标准未能反映农民面临的市场准入条件中的重要异质性；需要更好地了解分销网络和竞争情况。
