Contract farming of swine in Southeast Asia as a response to changing market demand for quality and safety in pork

"Contract farming is conventionally thought of as a form of industrial organization that helps to overcome high monitoring, supervision, and environmental mitigation costs incurred from ensuring a reliable and uniform-quality supply (from the standpoint of integrators) and high capital and small-scale input and service purchase costs (from the standpoint of individual farmers). But contract farming is also a private sector vertical coordination response to the changing demand for certifying the use of quality inputs to produce quality outputs and of safe production procedures. This paper draws on lessons learned from experiences in the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam to illustrate how contract farming accomplishes that goal." -- from Author's Abstract