Summary
This article provides an empirical analysis of EU private food-safety standards impact on pesticide use and farm-level productivity among smallholder export vegetable producers in Kenya. We apply an extended three-stage damage control production framework that accounts for multiple endogeneity problems to farm-level data collected from a random cross-section sample of 439 small-scale vegetable producers. Estimation results show that export producers complying with private standards significantly use less toxic pesticides; however there is no significant difference on the total quantity of pesticides used. Contrary to findings elsewhere, the econometric evidences here show that export vegetable farmers in Kenya use pesticide below the economic optimum. The third stage structural revenue model results demonstrate a positive and significant impact of standards adoption on revenue of vegetable production.