Exploring sustainable netchains of smallholder cocoa farmers in Indonesia

Abstract

This study aims to investigate the interplay between regional netchain and value chain performance of Indonesia's smallholder cocoa farmers. The investigation was based on in-depth interviews with 45 key informants from two major regional cocoa netchains in the economy. During the interviews, participatory rural assessment technique was employed in order to find out how regional netchain dimensions are interacted with value chain performance. The findings proved the roles of governance mechanism and social embedding into the value chain performance. Governance mechanism was regarded as the most important variable to secure price stability, hence leads to a viable and sustainable regional netchain of cocoa production. Furthermore, social embedding also played an important role through the influence of patron-client systems.

Keywords

• regional netchain
• value chain
• smallholder farmers
• governance mechanism
• social embedding
• cocoa farmers