Resilience, market transparency, and farmer performance: an information processing perspective on fragmented agricultural markets

Farmers’ value realization is restricted by structural uncertainty, institutional fragmentation, and information asymmetry in the agricultural markets of developing economies. Previous studies have largely conceptualized resilience through disruption and recovery perspectives, while less attention has been given to its role in information processing and coordination within fragmented agricultural systems. Building on Information Processing Theory (IPT), this conceptual study reconceptualizes Agricultural Supply Chain Resilience as a distributed information-processing capacity and proposes that it influences farmer performance through market execution capability, with market transparency acting as a boundary condition. Market execution capability reflects the ability to convert coordinated information into market processes, including grading, pricing, auctioning, and settlement. By reducing informational ambiguity and enhancing the reliability and interpretability of market information, market transparency moderates the extent to which execution ability converts into farmer outcomes. By positioning resilience as a distributed information processing capability, the study’s framework advances IPT beyond primary hierarchical organizational settings to fragmented agricultural systems. This study indicates a multi-faceted approach to policy interventions that should combine digital market platforms and transparency mechanisms with institutional capacity, farmer organizations, and support for market access and bargaining conditions.