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Innovation Platforms and Value Chain Role Expansion among Ugandan Coffee Farmers: Evidence on Peer Learning, Group Option, and Legitimacy

Robert Ochago

Abstract


Innovation platforms can help Ugandan coffee smallholders expand their roles in the value chain, beyond production, when they create repeated peer learning, support group action, and build legitimacy for new roles. However, most research emphasises platform design and average outcomes and says little about the daily social costs of upgrading attempts, such as recognition, trust, moral pressure, and jealousy.  This study examines how smallholders in eastern Uganda identify value chain constraints, what they learn through platform participation, and how local legitimacy shapes who persists as trader, mobiliser, or processor. Qualitative methods were used, including focus group discussions and interviews of 91 innovation platform participants from Kapchorwa, Manafwa, and Namisindwa districts. The study applied a reflective thematic analysis. The study found that the expansion of the roles beyond primary production, including marketing, buying, coordination, and service, is achieved through practical learning, peer learning, training and interactions. The dynamics of recognition by others enhance farmers' trust, enabling them to sustain these expanded roles. On the other hand, recognition also creates new obligations and moral pressure, with expectations for support, training others, and exemplary behaviour, which sometimes contribute to conflict and to withdrawal from leadership or facilitation roles. As much as collective action spaces created opportunities for bargaining and visibility, they also generated tensions over governance and the sharing of benefits. This study contributes to extension research by illustrating how platforms contribute to value chain upgrading through socially verified learning and legitimacy, and by creating social costs for the longevity of new farmer roles. The policy implications point to the need to design innovation platforms that consider governance, equitable recognition and opportunities, and support for farmer intermediaries.

Keywords


Innovation platforms; Agricultural advisory services; Pluralistic extension; Social learning; Collective action; Legitimacy

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DOI: 10.33687/ijae.014.01.6025

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