1. Introduction
Agricultural product certification schemes for farmers have gained considerable attention since the early 1990s [
1]. Additionally, there is an increasing concern worldwide about food safety, environmental sustainability, and farmers’ rights (e.g., labor conditions, gender equality, and producer welfare) in the agricultural sector [
2,
3]. Thus, many voluntary certification standards involving farmers have been introduced as a key approach to solving these issues [
4]. A series of agricultural product certification projects have been implemented in Taiwan since 1994, including Good Agricultural Practices (GAP) in 1994, Traceable Agriculture Products (TAP) in 2007, and organic agricultural products in 2009 [
5,
6,
7]. Unfortunately, the adoption rate of farmers participating in the certification labeling system is still not as encouraging as expected [
6,
8]. Understanding the factors that are correlated with farmers’ decisions to participate in agricultural certification projects is crucial to effectively promoting these projects [
3].
There has been a wealth of research on agricultural product certifications and the factors associated with their adoption [
8,
9,
10,
11,
12,
13]. The literature documents broad categories of factors influencing farmers’ adoption decisions, including socio-demographic characteristics, farm size, farming experience, farm income, labor conditions, farm types, and farm location. However, the influence of these factors on farmers’ adoption decisions varied across countries. For example, in some European countries and the US, a farmer’s gender, education level, farming experience, family size, farm income, and organizational membership were important determinants regarding the adoption of organic systems [
14,
15,
16]. Conversely, a study by Singh and Maharjan [
17] in Nepal reveals that gender has no role in the adoption decisions of smallholders [
13]. Likewise, farm size and farming experience positively influence decision making in certification adoption in Turkey [
18], while those factors negatively impact organic certification in the US, Thailand, and West African contexts [
15,
19,
20]. Understanding the region-specific determinants regarding the adoption of agricultural product certifications is crucial for the successful diffusion of sustainable agricultural practices in different countries. Against the above backdrop, this study attempts to assess the determinants of adopting three agricultural product certifications, including GAP, TAP, and organic agricultural products, in Taiwan.
According to the perspective of the Overseas Cooperative Development Council [
21] in 2007, cooperative management was regarded as a useful means for organizing smallholders to overcome economic and market constraints by enhancing their collective bargaining power. This perspective implied that farmers’ organizations increase the feasibility of agricultural product certification for small-scale farmers by developing economies of scale [
22,
23,
24]. In this context, strengthening the farmer’s organizational capacity is regarded as an approach to promoting agricultural product certification. After Taiwan joined the World Trade Organization in 2002, the agricultural sector was compelled to improve food safety and quality to enhance its competitiveness in the global agricultural market. Such organizational participation is especially important for encouraging farmers to adopt agricultural product certifications in Taiwan, where most farmers are small-scale holders with low production yields, aging labor, and weak market competition [
25,
26]. Although the organizational approach has attracted attention among agricultural economists, little is known about how the approach affects agricultural product certification choices. As is evident, there are limited empirical studies on such issues in Taiwan, which have focused solely on the association between specific organization membership and single food certifications [
3,
8,
25].
Previous studies indicated that farmers’ organizations have the assistance available to facilitate the adoption of agricultural product certifications in many countries [
9,
23,
25]. For instance, Monteiro and Caswell [
27] found that the adoption of traceability certifications among farmers was affected by their membership in particular producer organizations. Wollni and Andersson [
28] observe that farmers with organizational membership are more likely to adopt organic certifications due to the organizations providing access to related information and assistance for the adoption decision. Snider et al. [
29] found that farmers’ organizations encourage the adoption of voluntary certifications through training farm management practices. However, the association between membership in agricultural groups and certification adoption is inconclusive [
30]. Experts, such as Ssebunya et al. [
31], highlight that with or without certification, long-standing group membership has positive income effects. This result implies that participating in organizations will not necessarily increase the possibility of farmers adopting labels. Ruben and Fort [
32] also suggest that dissatisfaction with organizational service provision will reduce farmers’ willingness to obtain agricultural certification. In addition, the existing literature presents substantial supporting evidence from membership of farmers’ organizations, which includes training, information acquisition, contact with extension agents, access to resources and markets, technological support, motivation, and interaction with other members [
33,
34,
35]. This argument means that farmers’ participation in these organizations may be influenced by multifaceted interests and will enhance incentives for group certification. Therefore, more research is required to explore the role of participation in farmers’ organizations in certification adoption.
The previously mentioned literature tends to treat all farmers’ organizations without distinction, ignoring their diverse roles and functions. However, the diversity of farmers’ organizations might imply different organizational capacities, interests, and responses to agricultural certification [
36]. For example, assets and financial capital affect an organization’s ability to provide benefits, influencing its members’ perceptions of certification [
34,
37,
38]. Furthermore, Latynskiy and Berger [
23] note that the adoption of group certification depends on the size of the farmers’ organization. In this regard, for smaller and less efficient organizations, group certification has a lower income effect, and it becomes less profitable. In general, a solid organizational infrastructure and management capacity will likely pursue the successful implementation of group certification. Therefore, this study considers individual participation in different farmers’ organizations and explores how organizational participation determines farmers’ certification choices [
23,
39].
This paper aims to investigate the determinants of farmers’ agricultural certification decisions. To this end, special attention was paid to the relationship between the different types of farmers’ organizational participation and farmers’ certification decisions. The following research problems regarding farmers’ adoption decisions were addressed. First, what factors are associated with agricultural certification adoption behaviors? Second, to what extent do socio-demographic characteristics and farming factors affect the adoption of these certifications? Finally, how do two types of organizational participation influence the decision making of agricultural certification adoption? In contrast to existing studies on this topic, this study is unique in several ways. First, unlike earlier studies that relied on the collection of data from limited sample sizes or restricted areas [
11,
40], this study utilizes a nationwide representative survey of farm households in Taiwan, which allows for a larger-scale evaluation of the impacts of agricultural cooperatives. Second, this study distinguishes the effects of different organizational categories on agricultural product certification decisions. Due to inherent organizational features, different types of farmers’ organizations cannot be analyzed or treated as homogeneous entities. Third, most previous studies have only considered the certification decision as a binary choice between “yes or no” [
4,
8,
41]. This study goes one step further by defining the adoption decision of agricultural certification as multiple choices: no certification, GAP label, TAP label, and organic label. This study includes farmers participating in various farmers’ organizations and different types of certifications, which allows for broader conclusions to be drawn.
The remainder of this paper is organized as follows. First, a brief introduction is provided on the background of the agricultural product certification system and farmers’ organizations in Taiwan, followed by an explanation of the data. An empirical model is then presented, and the results are discussed. Finally, the paper concludes with a summary and discussion of policy implications.
2. Overview of the Agricultural Product Certification System in Taiwan
Along with the liberalization of world trade in the early 2000s, food safety has become one of the major concerns in the agricultural sector. The Council of Agriculture (COA) integrated a series of agricultural labeling systems to comprehensively promote safe agricultural policies in Taiwan. The development of agricultural certification systems is associated with meeting the needs of consumers that differ in scope and history. As exhibited in
Table 1, the GAP label, launched in 1994, was the first certification label, followed by the TAP label in 2007 [
5,
6]. Organic certification became integrated into the agricultural labeling system in 2009.
The GAP certification aims to implement safe pesticide use methods, record pesticides employed, and enable consumers to recognize safe products. The application and review process for GAP certification is not applicable for individual farmers but only for agricultural production and marketing groups (APMGs) [
5]. The GAP certification only requires APMGs to send samples for pesticide residue inspection rather than on-site sampling inspection. In 2015, 2127 APMGs had passed the GAP inspection. Furthermore, the total area of the certified GAP accounted for 25,761 hectares of cultivated land [
42]. Therefore, GAP was the first certification label but is less stringent than other labeling systems.
In addition, the TAP is regarded as the cornerstone for building the formal agricultural certification system per the “Agricultural Production and Certification Act”. Compared with conventional agricultural practices, TAP-certified products with health labels and higher prices achieved explosive growth in farming area and production volume in recent years. The TAP certification focuses on safe, sustainable, and open information traceable products. The TAP certification system requires farmers to record a profile for each product, including details of inputs, farming work forms, production, processing, packaging, and transportation to sales [
8]. The TAP certification is applicable for individual farmers, cooperatives, or other producer groups. The TAP system is promoted through implementing a TAP information platform and formulating operating standards, such as Taiwan’s Good Agricultural Practices (TGAP). In 2015, there were 1570 certificated applicants. In the same year, 11,209 hectares of farmland had been certified, and an average of 5.27 million labels were used per month, which grew by 47% compared with the same quarter the year before [
7]. Compared with the other two certification systems, the inspection of organic products was the most rigorous and environmentally friendly certification. Organic agricultural products are designed to reject the use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides. According to the record, 2598 farmers and 6490 hectares of farmland received organic certification in 2015 [
42].
In addition to quality assurance and food safety guarantee, the GAP, TAP, and organic certifications also contribute to certifying the product origins, generating price premiums, and offering better marketing opportunities compared with conventional products [
8,
43]. The advantages of agricultural certifications can be summarized as follows: qualification based on nationally recognized standards, government subsidies, price premiums, and meeting the marketing requirements for superior market access. Conversely, lower productivity and yields, higher input costs, and expensive inspection fees have hindered farmers’ willingness to adopt the certification labels.
3. The Background of Farmers’ Organizations in Taiwan
The farmers’ associations (FAs), agricultural cooperatives (co-ops), and agricultural production and marketing groups (APMGs) are three traditional farmers’ organizations with a legal basis in Taiwan [
44]. APMGs, which are sub-organizations under the FAs, are the most basic organizations for farmers. In 1952, several FAs established different grassroots groups for autonomous learning and cooperative activities to strengthen agricultural extension services. Considering that APMGs play an important role in expanding the scale of agricultural operations and enhancing social participation, the government integrated existing organizations collectively, redefined their organizational functions, and referred to agricultural production and marketing groups by the Agricultural Development Act in 2004. As a result, there were 6518 APMGs in 2014, and the share of crops groups accounted for 87.8% (i.e., 5725 APMGs) of the total figure [
45]. Thus, agricultural authorities and extension agents could provide group counseling and assistance to APMGs in terms of operations management, production technologies, and marketing capabilities instead of individual advisory services.
An agricultural cooperative is defined as a cooperative established by natural persons engaged in agriculture, i.e., crop, livestock, fish farming, forestry, or any agribusiness-related service, based on their willingness and common need to cooperate. The agricultural cooperatives are regarded as a useful means for policy implementation toward small-scale agricultural development. The establishment of agricultural co-ops must align with Taiwan’s Cooperative Act, which could be divided into different categories, such as agricultural production, transportation, marketing, co-ops, or both. In 2015, there were 1106 co-ops and 150,244 members in Taiwan [
46].
The main differences between the two forms of farmers’ organizations are that the APMGs are sub-organizations under local FAs, without legal person status. Besides, profits and losses of APMGs are borne by individual members, and the organization’s convention is customized and quite flexible. As for agricultural cooperatives, in addition to the legal person status, farmers can freely apply for establishment in a series and share the profits and losses of cooperatives. A more detailed comparison of APMGs and co-ops is shown in
Table 2.
5. Results
5.1. Descriptive Statistics of the Sample Characteristics
Table 3 presents the sample statistics of the selected variables. Among the 3853 farm operators, 68% did not adopt any agricultural product certification. The socio-demographic characteristics of the sample show that 92% of respondents were male. In addition, the features of farm operators showed that the average years of farming experience was 29.6 years, the average farm size was 1.58 hectares, the average age was 56.7 years, and most of them had graduated from senior high school or lower, whereas only 5% of them had completed college-level education or higher. The average number of household members working on the farm was 2.65. The average farm income was TWD 1.97 million per year, 62% tend to produce high-value crops (including fruits, flowers, mushrooms, or special crops) and 35% have used agricultural facilities. For the regional characteristics, about 58% of the sample reported living in the western area.
5.2. Association between Farmers’ Association Participation and Selected Variables
Table 4 presents the distribution of the socio-demographic characteristics for farm operators who participated in co-ops and APMGs. Among the 3853 farm operators, 545 (14%) are members of co-ops and 3308 (86%) participate in APMGs. In general, compared with APMG members, farmers who engage with co-ops are more likely to be male, younger, possess higher education, or be those living in western areas. In addition, farmers who are members of co-ops are more profitable and have larger farms. On average, farmers who engage with co-ops observe farm profits of TWD 3.79 million, and the average farm size of participants is 2.09 hectares. Participants in co-ops also have a higher number of laborers (including household members, regular workers, and temporary workers) working on the farm, tend to produce livestock farms, and use agricultural facilities. The results showed that the differences in the most selected socio-demographic characteristics and organizational participation were statistically significant, except for educational level, farming experience, and farm size.
5.3. Association between Organizational Participation and Agricultural Product Certification
As seen in
Table 5, the farmers participating in co-ops are less likely to adopt agricultural product certifications than their APMGs counterparts. On average, up to 75.96% of the farmers engaging with co-ops have not obtained agricultural product certification—more than those in APMGs (66.51%). Similarly, a lower ratio of co-op participants has also adopted the GAP and TAP labels: 9.17% and 8.99%, respectively. In contrast, farms participating in co-ops are more likely (5.87%) to use the organic label than their counterparts (3.69%). In general, these certifications have not proven as successful as expected since a lower participation rate has been recorded.
5.4. The Determinants Associated with the Choice of Agricultural Product Certification
The factors influencing the adoption of agricultural product certifications were examined using the MNL model. Among the different types of agricultural product certifications, the study chose “no certification” as the reference group since it represents the highest proportion (68% of all certification choices). Therefore, all the estimated coefficients for the selected variables represent the effect of the variables on the specific certification compared with the “no certification” choice.
Table 6 displays the estimations of the several logistic regression analyses, which include coefficients, standard errors, odds ratios (i.e., Exp(β)), and significance levels. The study began by looking at the findings of the statistical tests (bottom of
Table 6). For the likelihood ratio test, the log pseudo-likelihood value is −3322.78, which is higher than the critical value at the 1% level (
p < 0.001). Therefore, the null hypothesis that all slope coefficients are zero was rejected. In general, the farmers’ decisions on agricultural certification were significantly influenced by organizational participation, socio-economic characteristics, farm production features, and regional locations. However, the effects and statistical significance of each explanation vary inconsistently across different agricultural certification models.
In the GAP model, the respondents who were younger, had more farming experience, engaged in food crop farming activities using agricultural facilities, and were located in the southern and eastern regions were more likely to participate in the GAP certification than their counterparts. For example, the odds ratio of increasing one year of farming experience is more likely to adopt the GAP certification than “no certification” by a factor of 1.01, given that all other variables remain constant. In addition, compared with their counterparts, the odds ratios of those farms located in southern and eastern regions for adopting the GAP certification are 1.53 and 1.75, respectively (compared with “no certification”). However, there is no significant association found between organizational membership and GAP certification. A more detailed discussion will be provided in the follow-up section.
Although similar patterns were found across the other two logistic models’ estimations, significant differences existed. In the TAP model, organizational participation, age, farming experience, the number of temporary workers, high-value crop and livestock farms, agricultural facilities, and regional location were significantly associated with an increase in the proportional odds of adopting the TAP certification. The respondents who participated as members in co-ops were less likely to adopt the TAP certification, compared with those that were members of APMGs, by 64%. In addition, a higher likelihood of adopting the TAP certification, compared with “no certification”, is evident for longer farming experience, more temporary workers, high-value crop farms (vs. food crop farms), and agricultural facilities used. In this regard, the odds ratios are 1.01, 1.02, 1.30, and 1.43, respectively.
The certification model of organic products indicated that co-op members are more likely to adopt the organic certification than APMG members. The odds ratio accounts for 1.14. Moreover, higher educational level, more farming experience, farm revenue, and used agricultural facilities are positively associated with adopting the organic certification. Therefore, these respondents have a higher probability of participating in the organic certification program. In summary, although the effects of explanatory variables on different agricultural certifications vary across different models, the direction and significance of relevant determinants remained largely unchanged.
6. Discussion
The results reveal a significant relationship between farmers’ organizational participation and the choice of agricultural product certification, except for the GAP label. As hypothesized, organizational membership had a significant effect, implying that the farmers affiliated with an agricultural group or organization were more likely to adopt TAP and organic labels [
28]. This result reflects that the activities in groups and knowledge shared by other farmers help the farmers to access information easily and solve problems regarding group certification and group marketing [
28,
31]. This study’s finding is supported by previous studies documenting the significant and positive influence of group membership on farmers’ adoption behaviors [
27,
29].
Regarding different effects of organizational participation, the results indicate that farm operators participating in APMGs are more likely to use the TAP labels than their counterparts in co-ops. In contrast, the farm operators who participated in cooperatives are more likely to use organic label certifications. This finding supports the hypothesis that different types of farmers’ organizational participation influence varying choices of agricultural certification labels. The result is plausible that cooperative membership is more likely to have more production advantages for adopting organic label certifications due to their capacity to create economies of scale [
23,
34]. In addition, co-ops operating in the form of enterprises can have large-scale operations, providing greater motivation and possibilities for capital investment to enhance product quality and food safety, and better market access (i.e., supermarket and wholesale chains) as compared with individual producers [
3,
50]. This finding means that farmers with cooperative membership have more resources and enjoy more advantages (e.g., lower production cost, efficient farm management, better access to markets and supplies, more policy-induced subsidies), making them dedicated to adopting organic farming practices [
34,
51]. Although cooperatives can get a great advantages in knowledge acquisition or government subsidies, the adoption of organic certification has still been slow in Taiwan. Not every cooperative member is comfortable transitioning because of the associated barriers. These barriers include strict inspection mechanisms, pesticide and agrochemical exclusions, high management costs, risks of above a two-year transition, amplified recordkeeping requirements, long-term field management and diverse crop rotations, land access securing, lack of markets to capture marketing premiums, and changes in the government’s subsidy policy [
52].
Most socio-demographic characteristics of farm operators, except gender, affect the selection of agricultural product certification. Farmers’ ages influence their decisions to participate in agricultural product certification. In this regard, older farmers are less likely to choose the GAP and TAP label certifications compared with their younger counterparts. This finding may reflect the fact that older farmers are more risk-averse and less willing to utilize new farming practices (i.e., traceable techniques) than younger farmers [
27]. This result is inconsistent with the smallholder cases in the Netherlands [
16] and Nepal [
12], which showed that older farmers had more opportunities for adoption than younger farmers. These outcomes may be due to a good relationship with an extension service and more experience in farming. The educational attainment of the farm operator is also a significant factor in the organic certification model. Results show that farm operators who have finished senior high school and above are more likely to have organic certification compared with their counterparts with primary education. This result aligns with the cases of small US farms [
15] and smallholder farmers in Thailand [
20], possibly reflecting that regardless of the regional difference, educated smallholder farmers are likely to be more attracted to the positive environmental externalities that organic farming practices generate.
Farming features also impact the decision toward farmers’ agricultural product certifications. Farm operators who are more experienced in production tend to adopt the GAP and TAP labels as well as organic certification. This result may support the belief that farmers with more experience is usually older and less educated to shift to relatively new concepts of farming [
20,
27]. A reasonable explanation is that farmers with more farming experience may have a better understanding of farming practices and can evaluate the viability of participating in agricultural certification programs [
10]. As expected, having more temporary workers working on the farm also increases the likelihood of obtaining TAP certification. This result aligns with the previous findings, which indicate that agricultural-certificated farming practices require more labor inputs than non-certificated ones [
53]. However, no significant association is found between farm size, farm labor, and GAP as well as organic label certification.
Differences in participation across farm types are also evident. Compared to their counterparts, the high-value crop producers, producing crops such as vegetables, fruit, flowers, mushrooms, or special crops, are more likely to be involved in TAP labeling rather than GAP and organic labels. The result is plausible—fresh fruits and vegetables have become the main product promoted by the traceability system in many countries to reduce fresh food waste caused by perishability [
54]. It may, therefore, be reflected that authorities targeted fruits and vegetables which are more easily traceable as priority projects during the initial stage of the TAP program in Taiwan [
8,
13,
43]. The results also indicate that livestock farms are less likely to select the GAP and TAP labels compared with the high-value crop producers. In contrast, livestock farm operators are more likely to adopt organic labels than food crop farmers. Therefore, it was logical to conclude that organic livestock products are gradually attracting consumers’ attention and favor in Taiwan, and thus have a higher price premium than plant food products [
55,
56].
Furthermore, farm operators who use agricultural facilities are more likely to participate in the GAP and TAP certification systems than their counterparts. It is reasonable to expect that using agricultural facilities allows for better control of crop production, recording of environmental conditions, and meeting certification requirements [
57]. The study’s result, which was anticipated, suggests that farm operators who have more farm revenue are more likely to have organic certification. Consistent with the findings in Pradhan, Tripura, Mondal, Darnnel, and Murasing [
10], this study discovered that higher incomes afforded farmers financial security, thereby supporting them in accepting the risks of investing in high-cost organic farming.
Finally, farm location has been shown to influence the decision to be certified. In this regard, those farmers living in the middle, south, and eastern regions of Taiwan have a greater likelihood of choosing the GAP and TAP labels. In contrast, farm operators located in the northern region are more likely to choose organic certification. One explanation for this is producers in the northern regions are responding to urban customers who may be more likely to demand organic products than consumers in other regions. As Hsu et al. [
13] indicate, there is a higher concentration of organic food stores in the northern region, implying that there is strong demand for organic-certificated products in this region.
In all, farmers’ decisions on agricultural certification were significantly influenced by socio-economic characteristics, farm production features, and regional locations. In this regard, the likelihood of adopting organic certification was observed among the well-educated (i.e., those with a senior high school education or above), those with a longer farming experience, farmers running livestock farms, those earning more farm revenue, and farms located in the northern region. Alternatively, farmers with more farming experience and temporary workers with high-value crop farms, those accessing agricultural facilities, or who lived in non-northern areas were more likely to choose TAP labels than non-certification. In addition, the target that is potentially more likely to adopt the GAP label is those with more farming experience, with food crop farms (compared to livestock farms), and those living in southern and eastern areas (compared to northern areas). As hypothesized, these results indicate that the factors affecting farmers’ certification choices across farmers’ organizations are different and should be considered in efforts to promote different agricultural certification practices in Taiwan.
7. Conclusions
This study used a national survey of core farm households to investigate the determinants of farm operators’ participation decisions regarding agricultural certification programs. Special attention was accordingly paid to understanding the roles of the different types of farmers’ organizational participation in certification decisions among the farmers. By estimating MNL model, several findings were revealed. First, the farmers’ decisions for certification were significantly influenced by socio-economic characteristics, farm production features, and regional location [
9,
10,
13]. Furthermore, it was evident that participation in farmers’ organizations has significantly influenced decision making on the adoption of agricultural product certifications, except for the GAP label. The farm operators who participate in co-ops or APMGs make different choices on agricultural products certification labels. In this regard, the former is more likely to adopt organic labels while the latter tends to adopt TAP labels. This result implies that farmers’ organizational participation increases the likelihood of adopting distinct agricultural certifications, providing evidence for the importance of access to information and assistance for the adoption decision [
28,
29].
This study goes beyond the existing literature on the topic in several ways [
3,
40]. First, its strength lies in its use of data from a large national survey examining the state of farmers’ organizational participation and the adoption rate of the agricultural product certification program in Taiwan. Second, as far as is evident, few studies have examined the association between farmers’ organizational participation and agricultural product certification in Taiwan. These studies focused solely on the association between the whole membership of farmers’ organizations and specific agricultural certification adoption [
8,
25]. Therefore, this study seeks to contribute to the existing literature on the topic in Taiwan; it further distinguished the effects of different farmers’ organization categories on the different choices of agricultural certification, allowing for insight into the determinants of designated agricultural product certifications. Furthermore, examining the different effects of organizational characteristics allows for an understanding of how farmers’ organizations can be more effective in improving the adoption of agricultural product certification [
33,
34]. Moreover, the study employed a 2SLS regression model to address the potential endogeneity of organizational participation in relation to their decision making on agricultural certification.
Several policy implications can be inferred from this study’s findings. Given that the formation of farmers’ organizations is necessary for sharing information and promoting agricultural product certification systems, more incentives must be established to drive farmers’ participation. The incentive programs offered should be beyond economic incentives, such as subsidizing certification costs. Simplifying administrative procedures, providing sustainable agri-food training courses, or supporting ICT-based services also matter for facilitating agricultural certification. Furthermore, the results also show that up to 68% of the members of farmers’ organizations have not adopted any agricultural certification, which means that the farmers’ groups have limited support in the adoption of agricultural product certifications. Farmers who are already marginalized because of older age, poor education, limited financial capacity, land access, and lack of market accessibility may require additional support measures to improve their capacities, skills, and resources before they are able to benefit from membership in farmers’ organizations.
The participation of different farmers’ organizations could affect the adoption of different certifications for farmers. Policy or program prescriptions should consider these differences in the operation of APMGs and co-ops and provide targeted subsidies or tailor-made measures. The authorities must expand and coach the APMGs to facilitate their transformation into agricultural cooperatives to increase the adoption of organic certification. Such action can take the form of horizontally linking other groups to jointly form a cooperative. Compared with organic labeling, GAP and TAP certifications have lower thresholds and are easier to be accepted by farmers who implement conventional agriculture. Therefore, the government should encourage small-scale farmers to engage in production and marketing groups to increase the participation rate of the GAP and TAP programs. This study provides a preliminary understanding of the relationship between different types of farmers’ organizations and agricultural certification adoption in a small-scale farming economic context. Even though officially certified food is likely to contribute to improving product competitiveness and farm income, it is acknowledged that smallholdings with limited available resources are challenged in qualifying under a complicated agricultural certification system. Thus, the findings of this study on Taiwan’s agricultural product certifications could provide useful insights and serve as a reference to other smallholder countries [
17,
20].
Finally, some limitations of this study will be mentioned. In the first instance, the study’s data were cross-sectional, preventing consideration of the dynamic aspects of farmers’ participation in organizations and their agricultural product certification decisions. In addition, the data structure of the CFHS did not permit the research to further distinguish whether the farmer organization is a production, sales, purchase, supply, service, or other type of cooperative. Further detailed information (e.g., organization size, financial resources, the extent of farmer participation, or technical assistance capacity) related to farmers in organizational participation could be helpful in showing the robustness of these findings.