Barriers to Forest Certification Adoption and their Implications to Household Welfare: Exploring the Role of Contract Farming and Insurance

• Project/Area Number: 25K00094
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (B)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Review Section: Basic Section 41010:Agricultural and food economics-related
• Research Institution: Kyoto University
• Principal Investigator: VU HATHU 京都大学, 白眉センター, 特定助教 (30882005)
• Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha): 三浦 憲 京都大学, 農学研究科, 准教授 (00876097) ; TRAN ANH・DUC 広島大学, グローバルキャンパス推進機構, 助教 (10868467) ; 高野 久紀 京都大学, 経済学研究科, 准教授 (40450548)
• Project Period (FY): 2025-04-01 – 2029-03-31
• Project Status: Granted (Fiscal Year 2025)
• Budget Amount: ¥15,990,000 (Direct Cost: ¥12,300,000、Indirect Cost: ¥3,690,000); Fiscal Year 2028: ¥3,900,000 (Direct Cost: ¥3,000,000、Indirect Cost: ¥900,000); Fiscal Year 2027: ¥3,900,000 (Direct Cost: ¥3,000,000、Indirect Cost: ¥900,000); Fiscal Year 2026: ¥3,900,000 (Direct Cost: ¥3,000,000、Indirect Cost: ¥900,000); Fiscal Year 2025: ¥4,290,000 (Direct Cost: ¥3,300,000、Indirect Cost: ¥990,000)
• Keywords: Forest certification / Forest contract farming / Forest insurance / RCT / Vietnam

Outline of Research at the Start

Forest certification is designed to achieve both socio-economic development and environmental protection. Due to long cyclical income and high initial investments, forest farmers have been facing issues of disaster risk, market risk, and liquidity constraint, which makes them reluctant to adopt forest certification. Forest contract farming (CF) and forest insurance could mitigate such problems. This research explores two questions: How do forest CF and forest insurance affect the adoption of forest certification? What are the economic and environmental impacts of forest certification?