Sustainability certification programs which promote sustainable smallholder agriculture are increasingly popular, but there is limited understanding of what enhances or impedes their impacts and literature on this is inconclusive. Key aspects of sustainability certification programs have not been adequately studied including how they work in practice with smallholder farmers, how the requirements and expected benefits are perceived, and how participating and nonparticipating farmers compare. Also, how the different production systems, market types, and physical product attributes of various crops affect smallholder farmers' views on sustainability certification, and how SC works in practice had not been studied much. Again, the factors of success/failure of certified smallholder farmer groups have not received much attention.Therefore, this dissertation undertakes three separate studies to address these gaps. One study uses panel data to examine changes in how smallholder cocoa farmers perceive SC, how SC works in practice, and characteristics and perceptions of participating and nonparticipating farmers. The second study employs survey data spanning four crops to examine how characteristics of crops affect smallholder farmers' views on SC and how SC works in practice. And the third study uses group-level survey data and in-depth interviews to examine characteristics of certified smallholder farmer groups that influence the likelihood of their continued operation.The first study finds that smallholder farmers have positive perceptions about SC. Also, though there have been slight improvements, how SC works in practice is still not as desired. Again, participating and nonparticipating farmers are not much different. The second study finds that how SC works in practice varies across smallholder farmers certified for the four different crops. The third study finds that the factors that influence the likelihood of a certified smallholder farmer groups' continued operation are like those that appear to influence the success/failure of other groups in general. These findings broaden how we understand what enhances or impedes the impacts of SC. They support the conclusion that SC can be implemented so that they work well in practice, account for the context of different smallholder farmers, and strengthen viability of smallholder farmer groups.
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