Contract Farming for Production and Export of Vegetables in Bangladesh

The study was designed to discuss the main features of contract vegetable production; to examine the vegetable supply chain, to estimate profitability of vegetables produced by contract and non-contract farmers and to estimate the effects of the key variables which are responsible for the production of different vegetables. Primary data collected from thirty samples of each category which were randomly selected from the study area, Chandina of Comilla district. The Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee (BRAC) has introduced the contract farming system of vegetables for export using the "centralized limited management contract" model with a verbal or unwritten form of contract. The supply chain started from the production of high value vegetables through contract farmers and finally exported to mainstream supermarkets of the world. The gross margins, net returns and partial budgeting analysis showed that the contract growers significantly benefited much more than the non-contract growers. The findings of the log-linear regression model revealed that the key variables included in the model were individually or jointly responsible for variation in gross returns.