Day 2 am session: “Colombian Agricultural Supply Chain Organizations: How Public Policy Shapes Agriculture and how value chain actors shape policy,” Rafael Parra-Pena, CIAT Workshop on Approaches and Methods for Policy Process Research, co-sponsored by the CGIAR Research Programs on Policies, Institutions and Markets (PIM) and Agriculture for Nutrition and Health (A4NH) at IFPRI-Washington DC, November 18-20, 2013.

1. Rafael Isidro Parra-Peña S. and Mark Lundy
CIAT
Policy Analyst and Senior Researcher
Presentation @ IFPRI
November 2013

2. Rural Colombia
While in urban areas, 30% of the population is considered poor, 7% extremely poor, in
rural areas poverty is at 65% and 33% are extremely poor.
•
In the last decade rural GDP increased 2.8%
•
Land concentration and inequality has increased in rural areas. The Gini index of rural
areas of land owners increased from 0.74 to 0.88
•
60% of rural employment is in the informal sector
•
55% of poor peasants have never received any kind of technical assistance or training
•
11% do not have a home, and 16% live in homes in disrepair
•
The average income of a peasants in 2009 was 220,000 pesos, while their urban
counterparts earned an average of 668,000 pesos
•
Illiteracy rate is 18.5% and 60% do not have access to potable water

3. Since the early 1990's, Colombia has pursued an innovative
policy agenda to promote the competitiveness of agricultural
supply chains, with a particular focus on programs and
initiatives that support rural smallholder farmers
Has the time come to ask
“has this policy
been effective?”
In terms of:
Competitiveness
Alleviating rural poverty
OBJECTIVE: to analyze
the results of public
supply chain policies in
Colombia

4. Timeline

5. A typical Supply Chain Organization
Committee or thematic
table
National Council
Regional Committee
Regional Committee
National technical
secretariat
Regional Committee

6. Competitiveness Agreement
Diagnostic
Strategy
Operative
Plan
Future Vision
SWOT
Analysis
Strategic
Plan

7. Vegetable Committee of Boyacá
Assuming that increased
contact between national and
local actors will facilitate the
adoption of technologies,
access to training , technical
assistance, access to state
programs at the local level,
the policy ultimately aims to
improve market
competitiveness and, in turn,
generate higher incomes for
the region's vegetable
producers.

8. 37 Supply Chain Organizations
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Aquaculture
Avocado
Cotton-textiles
Basic goods
Rice
Banana
Cacao
Coffee
Farmed shrimp
Sugar cane
Beef
Pork
Natural rubber
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Citrus
Coconut
Beekeeping
Equine
Fibers
Flowers and
foliage
Forestry
Bamboo
Guava
Herbs
Dairy
Mango
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Sheep and goat
Palm
Panela
Potato
Aromatic plants
Plantains
Aloe
Tobacco
Yucca
Passionfruit
Deciduous
Blackberries

9. What frameworks did you use to frame your study?
I- Macro Analysis
- Geographic focus
- Institutional Strength Index (ISI)
- ISI and competitiveness
- Selection of case studies

10. II-Mezzo Analysis
- Supply chain performance in terms of
competitiveness, institutional strength, equity and
social inclusion
- Key factors such as success, limitations, lessons
learned, and challenges that help generate
recommendations for improved design

11. III- Microeconomic
Analysis
- The impact of supply chain policy on the
livelihood of an average farmer
- The tomato supply chain organization as a
case study

12. A mix of qualitative and quantitative
analysis
Statistical analysis of available hard data
• Correlations between policy focalization and performance of social
indicators
Qualitative analysis
• Semi-structured interviews - SWOT Analysi.
Household surveys and econometrics
• Determinants of Production (MCO)
Associated probability (Probit)
Assessing the impact on poverty, income and productivity (PSM)
Changes in poverty levels (Probit)

13. How do you identify and engage different actors
in the policy process research?
• Donors / government / Researcher interest must
match
• Offer support in the identification of themes that
have the biggest potential to impact on policies

14. Empirical Findings/Reflections on Policy
Process Research
Average ISI and Variability by Supply Chain Organization

15. COMPETITIVE RESULTS

16. Case Studies
• Cacao in Santander
– ISI: 21
– 48% of national production
• Plantains in Quindío
– ISI: 8.3
– 11% of national production
• Vegetables in Boyacá
– ISI: does not exist
– 24% of national production

17. Concepts

18. SANTANDER REGIONAL CACAO
COMMITTEE: SWOT

19. Changes in the poverty level (PPI score)
Dependent Variable: Positive changes in PPI (Yes=1; No=0)
Policy Variable: Membership with a producer association
Methodology: Probit
 A unit increase in the index of training given by a producer
association to the tomato producers represents an increase of
1.38% in the probability that the household PPI score
experiment a positive change, on average ceteris paribus
 If the farmer diversifies, an additional crop apart from tomato,
increased the probability by 9.24% of having higher PPI score
 When the proportion of male in the household increases, it is
more likely to escape poverty

20. What worked well about your methods?
• Research is focused on identifying, designing and
communicating products as inputs for decision making.
“3PBs” + “WORKSHOP” + “Meetings” + “Blogs”
• Defining a Scope: the work is geographic- and themespecific
• The best approach is a combinations of methods.
Quantitative data may hide farmers realities
• Dialogue with the actors and design of an ad hoc survey.

21. What still needs improvement?
• Incidence on policy requires research by
Demand. Donor interest may be not enough…
Example:
• Improving the ISI index must have public
support

22. Unanswered questions/new research topics?
We don’t have the right to impose our conclusions. Indeed,
the Ministry of Agriculture is quite adverse to impact
assessments of its policies.
We need more data. For example, at the macro level
Colombia has serious data gaps. A way to measure
competiveness is with indicators/data but there is no…lack
of agricultural census..
More case studies. One case study can not speak for the
whole

23. How can we move from research to action on
policy processes?
1. We need a theory of change of the research;
2. Identification of key people to influence and how;
3. Systematic interchanges with these groups to identify
research demands and potential clients for current and
new research outputs.
Example Rural Development Group in Colombia supported by
Rimisp
• Caveats : Research is a public good. Not all research is
indented to impact policy.

24. Thank You!

25. Impact on Poverty, Income and Productivity
Methodology: Propensity Score Matching
Propensity score: the estimated probability to associated given observble characteristics
Impact
Method
Revenue per
cycle
(millions of
COP)
Productivity
(canastillas/
m2)
Control
Difference
T-stat
48.82
44.51
4.32
1.66
PTT
Kernel
Treatment
Unpaired
Progress out
of Poverty
Index(PPI)
Sample
48.25
46.42
1.83
0.53
Unpaired
46.28
42.46
3.83
0.45
PTT
46.79
48.35
-1.57
-0.14
Unpaired
0.61
0.76
-0.15
-0.78
PTT
0.63
0.73
-0.1
-0.5

26. Institutional Strength Index (ISI)
• ISI evaluates the
implementation of
supply chain policy at
the regional level
• Defined positively on
a scale from 0 to 3,
with higher scores
indicating better
performance of
supply chain policy

27. RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN PRODUCTION,
PERFORMANCE AND SOCIOECONOMIC INDICATORS