The dynamic of agrifood systems and institutional impacts on Romanian vegetable producers

The integration into the world trade and particularly along the chain of products with high value added, such as the vegetables chain, is considered as a promoter of growth and poverty alleviation (Aksoy and Beghin, 2005), even though this topic is subject to controversy. The paper’s purpose is to assess the role of collective organization forms in farmers’ participation in the Romanian supply chains, more exactly the possibility of farmers to adapt to the dynamic retail chains using new institutional economic theories. Having given the requirements imposed by retail chains to vegetable suppliers in terms of quantity, quality, frequency, food safety, it is expected that a small farmer cannot afford to participate individually in the retail chains due to high transaction costs, lack of scale and institutional changes required. In order to see the determinants of joining collective actions by vegetable producers, binary logit/probit models were used. The results signal out a small degree of farmers’ participation in collective forms of organizations. Also, they reveal a certain degree of uncertainty among stakeholders in terms of institutional arrangements and participation in collective action.