Participation is connected to technology through the notion of innovation systems. To make the connection work, it is argued, the focus has to shift from a framing of participation in terms of democratic entitlement to a framing in terms of the settlement of issues (i.e. politics from below), The innovation system is an appropriate notion to see where issues are likely to lock on to processes of technological change.
Supermarkets and high-value exports are currently gaining ground in the agri-food systems of many developing countries. While recent research has analyzed income effects in the small farm sector, impacts on farming efficiency have hardly been studied. Using a survey of Kenyan vegetable growers and a stochastic frontier approach, we show that participation in supermarket channels increases mean technical efficiency by 19%. This gain is bigger at lower levels of efficiency, suggesting the potential for positive income distribution effects.