Deadline: 31 July 2022

Annals of Public and Cooperative Economics invites high-quality theoretical, empirical and experimental articles that study the impacts, outcomes, and implications of farmers’ organizations. Articles investigating organizational performance, governance, and efficiency are also invited. Articles devoted to literature review will also be considered. Although the special issue focuses on Asian countries, articles on other countries are welcome.

I. Background

Farmers’ organizations (such as cooperatives, associations, self-help groups, producer organizations, farmer-based organizations, farmer groups, and collective action) can support the sustainable development of agricultural sectors and improve the living standard of rural households in many countries.

These organizations play multiple roles in increasing productivity, strengthening bargaining power, improving farm management skills, increasing household welfare and livelihoods, and boosting rural development. However, the relationship between farmers’ organizations and sustainable development remains unclear.

This special issue will enrich our understanding of the roles of farmers’ organizations in supporting the sustainable development of agricultural sectors and rural regions. It will also provide insights for policymakers to design appropriate policy instruments to boost rural and agricultural development.

II. Themes

Contributions related to (but not limited to) research investigating the relationships between farmers’ organizations and the following themes may be considered:

• Production performance (e.g., revenue, yield, efficiency, production diversity, and product quality)
• Adoption of technologies, especially sustainable technologies (e.g., organic fertilizers, biopesticides, improved seeds, mechanization, environmentally-friendly technologies, integrated pest management, green control practices, climate-smart agricultural practices, and climate change adaptation strategies
• Marketing performance (e.g., market participation, marketing channel choices, marketing efficiency, sales price, sales decision-making, bargaining power, and contractual arrangements)
• Objective well-being (e.g., livelihoods, consumption, income, food security, nutrition intake, and dietary diversity)
• Subjective well-being (e.g., happiness, life satisfaction, and loneliness)
• Women empowerment and intra-household decision making (e.g., labour allocation and migration)
• Financial inclusion
• Linkages with global value chains.

III. Benefits

• Authors of selected papers will be invited to present at the 29-30 August 2022 conference organized by the Asian Development Bank Institute (ADBI).
• Should conditions allow the conference to take place in Tokyo, ADBI will provide travel support to one author per paper.
• Papers submitted to the Special Issue will undergo a normal journal review process, starting as soon as the paper is accepted for a conference presentation. However, the final decision will be made after the conference. This will allow authors to incorporate feedback received during the conference into their manuscripts.

 

IV. Submission guidelines

• All submissions must contain papers that are original and should not be under consideration for publications elsewhere. All manuscripts must comply with the Author guidelines for Annals of Public and Cooperative Economics. There are no submission fees.
• Submission can be made through the journal’s online system here. When submitting your article, please select “SI: Farmers’ Organizations” when choosing submission type.
• All submissions will be subject to double-blind peer review and editorial processes following the policies of the APCE journal.
• The guest editors will first review papers submitted to the special issue. A paper may be rejected without being sent for review should the guest editors review the papers as unsuitable for the journal in terms of quality or aims and scope. The selected submissions will undergo an expedited review.
• The selected papers will be arranged for presentations at the conference organized by the Asian Development Bank Institute (ADBI). Other submissions that have good quality but are not relevant to the Special Issue will be transferred to be regular submissions.
• All accepted papers will be published online first, and then they will be listed together in a journal issue once all of the special issue papers are published online.

For more information, please visit the call's webpage

For enquiries, you may directly contact Assoc. Prof. Wanglin Ma at [email protected], Dr. Dil Rahut at [email protected], and Prof. Marco A. Marini at [email protected] for all contributions dealing with European organizations.