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Micro-Level Welfare Impacts of Agricultural Productivity: Evidence from Rural Malawi
Abstract
This article analyses the micro-level welfare impacts of agricultural productivity using a two-wave nationally representative, panel data from rural Malawi. Welfare is measured by various dimensions of poverty and food insecurity; and agricultural productivity is measured by maize yield and value of crop output per hectare. The poverty measures included per capita consumption expenditure, relative deprivation in terms of per capita consumption expenditure, poverty gap and severity of poverty; and the measures of food insecurity included caloric intake and relative deprivation in terms of caloric intake. Depending on the measure of welfare, the impact of agricultural productivity was estimated with a household fixed effects estimator, a two-part estimator or a correlated-random effect ordered probit estimator. The results indicate that growth in agricultural productivity has the expected welfare-improving effect. In terms of economic magnitude, however, both the direct effect and economy-wide spillover effect (in the non-farm sector) of a percentage increase in agricultural productivity on the poverty and food security measures are small. Efforts to effectively improve the welfare of rural agricultural households should therefore go beyond merely increasing agricultural (land) productivity.
... The study argues that greater emphasis should be placed on policies Introduction to the special issue 781 that enhance support for rural agricultural and non-agricultural sectors, as opposed to CT's implications emphasising the role of secondary towns and urbanisation as the main driver of poverty reduction in Africa. While agricultural productivity growth is certainly an important component of economic transformation, such growth is not in itself sufficient for poverty reduction and welfare gains (Darko, Palacios-Lopez, Kilic, & Ricker-Gilbert, 2018), and, in some cases, may not even be the primary driver of economic growth (Diao et al., 2018). ...
... Increasing competition for accessible farmland will almost certainly continue to result in continued holding fragmentation and dwindling median farm sizes. The low marginal welfare returns to productivity gains on very small holdings mean that much larger investments in closing the yield gap will be required to generate welfare improvements (Darko et al., 2018). The importance of agricultural investments is further emphasised by the likely limitations of the rural non-farm sector to absorb all or even most of the 11 million young Africans entering the labour market each year (Yeboah & Jayne, 2018). ...
... The challenge will be in finding innovative ways to help the smallest farmers take advantage of new marketing opportunities in those contexts. The magnitude of welfare improvements arising through lowered intermediation costs may possibly be greater in magnitude than the limited welfare gains of productivity for very small farmers (Darko et al., 2018). ...
... Thus, increased efforts are needed if we are to achieve the sustainable development goals of a world with no poverty and zero hunger by 2030. This will require, among other things, increasing the productivity of smallholder and subsistence farmers, given that about 84% of the farms worldwide are operated by smallholder farmers with less than 2 ha of farmland (Lowder, Skoet, & Raney, 2016), and agricultural productivity is widely acknowledged as an important pathway to the alleviation of food insecurity and poverty in the world (Minten & Barrett, 2008;De Janvry & Sadoulet, 2010;Darko, Palacios-Lopez, Kilic, & Ricker-Gilbert, 2018). ...
... Adoption of pest management practices may reduce crop losses and thus increased productivity. It is widely accepted that increased agricultural productivity can potentially enhance the welfare of farm households through a number of pathways (Dzanku, 2015;Darko et al., 2018). For instance, increased productivity could result in improved household food availability and thus increased income through crop sales and a reduction in the amount spent on the purchase of food crops. ...
... The explanatory variables included in X it are based on the technology adoption and impact literature (e.g., Larsen & Lilleør, 2014;Dzanku, 2015;Wossen et al., 2017;Darko et al., 2018;Tambo & Mockshell, 2018). These include household demographics such as age, gender and education of household head, household size and dependency ratio. ...
An estimated 40% of potential global crop production is lost annually to pests and diseases. Reducing this level of crop loss is critical to increasing agricultural productivity, which is essential in achieving the sustainable development goals of zero hunger and no poverty. However, the lack of access to timely and relevant advice on crop health problems poses a significant challenge to farmers to take action at the right time to mitigate crop losses. In efforts to address this issue, over 4000 plant clinics have been established in 34 countries worldwide where farmers who are struggling with plant pests and diseases can take samples of their 'sick' crops to trained plant doctors for diagnosis and plant health advice. The plant clinic initiative began in 2003, but thus far, there has not been a rigorous assessment of the impact of this innovative approach of delivering targeted agricultural extension services. Using a recent panel survey of smallholder maize producers in rural Rwanda, this paper attempts to address this gap by analysing the impact of plant clinics on farm performance (measured by technology adoption, and maize yield and income) and on poverty alleviation (measured by the Progress out of Poverty Index). Employing the correlated random effects estimation methods to account for unobserved heterogeneity, we find that plant clinics significantly increase the adoption of crop protection technologies to control devastating maize pests, such as fall armyworm and maize stalk borer, and this, in turn, results in significant maize yield and net income gains of 28% and 23%, respectively. We also show that seeking plant health advice from plant clinics is significantly associated with a 5% reduction in the likelihood of a household falling below the extreme poverty line of $1.25 per day. The results imply that policies and programmes aimed at promoting the establishment of and farmers' participation in plant clinics can contribute to increased agricultural productivity and poverty reduction.
... The study argues that greater emphasis should be placed on policies Introduction to the special issue 5 that enhance support for rural agricultural and non-agricultural sectors, as opposed to CT's implications emphasising the role of secondary towns and urbanisation as the main driver of poverty reduction in Africa. While agricultural productivity growth is certainly an important component of economic transformation, such growth is not in itself sufficient for poverty reduction and welfare gains (Darko, Palacios-Lopez, Kilic, & Ricker-Gilbert, 2018), and, in some cases, may not even be the primary driver of economic growth (Diao et al., 2018). ...
... Increasing competition for accessible farmland will almost certainly continue to result in continued holding fragmentation and dwindling median farm sizes. The low marginal welfare returns to productivity gains on very small holdings mean that much larger investments in closing the yield gap will be required to generate welfare improvements (Darko et al., 2018). The importance of agricultural investments is further emphasised by the likely limitations of the rural non-farm sector to absorb all or even most of the 11 million young Africans entering the labour market each year (Yeboah & Jayne, 2018). ...
... The challenge will be in finding innovative ways to help the smallest farmers take advantage of new marketing opportunities in those contexts. The magnitude of welfare improvements arising through lowered intermediation costs may possibly be greater in magnitude than the limited welfare gains of productivity for very small farmers (Darko et al., 2018). ...
Despite the continued deep challenges that the region is facing, mounting evidence points to profound economic transformation in sub-Saharan Africa since the early 2000s. The contributions in this special issue highlight three aspects of Africa’s unfolding economic transformation since 2000: remarkable progress for the region as a whole, highly uneven progress across countries, and unresolved questions about the sustainability of the transformations. The drivers of the region’s economic transformations are diverse, and include improved governance, strong agricultural growth in some countries, employment expansion in informal rural off-farm activities, strong local and foreign investment, a period of high global commodity prices, and policy reforms undertaken in earlier decades. Agricultural growth, by expanding job opportunities in the non-farm sectors through multiplier effects, is likely to remain an important driver of continued transformation, though it will increasingly need to rely on productivity growth rather than area expansion.
... The study argues that greater emphasis should be placed on policies Introduction to the special issue 5 that enhance support for rural agricultural and non-agricultural sectors, as opposed to CT's implications emphasising the role of secondary towns and urbanisation as the main driver of poverty reduction in Africa. While agricultural productivity growth is certainly an important component of economic transformation, such growth is not in itself sufficient for poverty reduction and welfare gains (Darko, Palacios-Lopez, Kilic, & Ricker-Gilbert, 2018), and, in some cases, may not even be the primary driver of economic growth (Diao et al., 2018). ...
... Increasing competition for accessible farmland will almost certainly continue to result in continued holding fragmentation and dwindling median farm sizes. The low marginal welfare returns to productivity gains on very small holdings mean that much larger investments in closing the yield gap will be required to generate welfare improvements (Darko et al., 2018). The importance of agricultural investments is further emphasised by the likely limitations of the rural non-farm sector to absorb all or even most of the 11 million young Africans entering the labour market each year (Yeboah & Jayne, 2018). ...
... The challenge will be in finding innovative ways to help the smallest farmers take advantage of new marketing opportunities in those contexts. The magnitude of welfare improvements arising through lowered intermediation costs may possibly be greater in magnitude than the limited welfare gains of productivity for very small farmers (Darko et al., 2018). ...
Using nationally representative data from nine countries, we document demographic and employment trends in Africa’s workforce based on full-time labour equivalents (FTE). The FTE approach takes account of individuals’ multiple jobs throughout the year and is therefore likely to give more accurate estimates of the pace of structural transformation. Since 2000, Africa has experienced a sharp decline in the share of its labour force in farming. Because of the seasonal nature of farming, the share of the labour force remaining in farming is substantially lower using the FTE approach than when examined in terms of individuals’ primary sources of employment or total numbers of jobs. Using the FTE approach, the share of the labour force in farming ranges across the nine countries from 35 per cent in Ghana to 54 per cent in Rwanda. Employment in off-farm segments of agri-food systems is expanding rapidly in percentage terms, but in terms of absolute numbers, non-farm activities are by far the major source of employment outside of farming. Contrary to widespread perceptions, the mean age of adults engaged primarily in farming is not rising – in fact it is falling slightly in some countries and remains stable in most others. The pace at which the labour force is shifting out of agriculture is strongly and positively tied to the rate of lagged farm productivity growth. Given the unprecedented growth in the number of young Africans entering the labour market, an effective youth employment strategy in most African countries will rely on massive job expansion, which in turn will rely on the multiplier effects of agricultural productivity growth. Strategies that raise the returns to labour in farming therefore remain crucial for achieving rapid economic transformation and may constitute the core of effective youth employment strategies.
... Hence, the Human Sustainable Development Index (HSDI) may be argued as a significant welfare measure for assessing true welfare [1][2]. The HSDI as a composite index of welfare comprises of four indices, namely: Carbon emissions index (which reflects the sustainable component of welfare), Income (which reflects the economic component of welfare) as discussed by [2], and Education and health indices (which respectively reflect the social component of welfare), and contrasts with the Human Development Index [3] and other narrower measures of welfare such as GDP per capita [4], Poverty [5][6], Food insecurity [5], Income [7] which have previously been used in empirical studies assessing welfare. ...
... Hence, the Human Sustainable Development Index (HSDI) may be argued as a significant welfare measure for assessing true welfare [1][2]. The HSDI as a composite index of welfare comprises of four indices, namely: Carbon emissions index (which reflects the sustainable component of welfare), Income (which reflects the economic component of welfare) as discussed by [2], and Education and health indices (which respectively reflect the social component of welfare), and contrasts with the Human Development Index [3] and other narrower measures of welfare such as GDP per capita [4], Poverty [5][6], Food insecurity [5], Income [7] which have previously been used in empirical studies assessing welfare. ...
Agriculture is central to welfare especially in the context of developing countries which include those of ECOWAS, however among those individuals’ dependent on agriculture for their livelihood are those living in poverty and earning low incomes amongst other living standards. On the other hand, sustainable socio-economic welfare is not given much attention in the welfare literature compared to other welfare categorisations such as socio-economic welfare and economic welfare. This study explores the effect of agricultural employment on sustainable socio-economic welfare as well as the possibility of a non-linear relationship between the aforementioned variables in a balanced panel of Fifteen ECOWAS member countries. Human Sustainable Development Index (HSDI) was used as proxy for Sustainable socio-economic welfare, while the proportion of employed individuals realising a living from agriculture is the measure for agricultural employment. The results from utilising panel data fixed effects estimation show that agricultural employment adversely and significantly resulted in sustainable socio-economic welfare declining while the hypothesis of non-linear relationship between the aforementioned variables was not supported. Consequently, the study recommends that ECOWAS member country governments in raising welfare levels focus necessarily on sustainable socio-economic welfare rather than socio-economic welfare that has been the traditional focus of welfare efforts. Also ECOWAS country governments should ensure that agriculture sector interventions effectively target the poor and vulnerable households relying on agriculture for their livelihood.
... Cukup banyak hasil riset terdahulu yang meliputi banyak negara dengan berbagai metode pendekatan dan bermacam cara pengukuran secara meyakinkan menunjukkan bahwa peningkatan produktivitas pertanian, melalui berbagai jalur keterkaitan dan mekanisme perambatan sebab-akibat, secara signifikan mengurangi angka kemiskinan, meningkatkan pendapatan riil, memperluas kesempatan kerja, menciptakan efek pengganda, dan menurunkan harga pangan. Di lain pihak, hambatan adopsi teknologi, keterbatasan aset, dan kendala akses ke pasar menghambat kelompok masyarakat termiskin untuk turut menikmati manfaat dari pertumbuhan produktivitas pertanian (Schneider & Gugerty, 2011;Devkota & Upadhyay, 2013;Dzanku, 2015;Ogundipe et al., 2017;Darko et al., 2018;Warr & Suphannachart, 2020;Benfica et al., 2021;Cateia et al., 2021). ...
Abstrak. Artikel ini bertujuan mengidentifikasi beberapa faktor yang diperkirakan menentukan kesenjangan kemiskinan desa-kota di Indonesia. Data antar-provinsi tahun 2000-2020 dianalisis dengan teknik regresi data panel. Kesenjangan kemiskinan desa-kota (variabel dependen) diukur dengan dua cara, yakni selisih dan rasio angka kemiskinan desa-kota. Variabel-variabel independen yang dianalisis adalah produk domestik regional bruto per kapita, produktivitas sektor pertanian, transformasi perdesaan, indeks kapasitas fiskal, dan rata-rata jumlah tahun bersekolah penduduk perdesaan. Kedua model itu memberikan hasil estimasi tanda parameter yang konsisten searah. Variabel independen yang secara signifikan berbanding terbalik dengan kedua variabel dependen adalah produktivitas sektor pertanian dan rata-rata jumlah tahun bersekolah penduduk perdesaan, sedangkan yang berbanding lurus adalah PDRB/Kapita dan indeks kapasitas fiskal. Dengan kata lain, dua variabel independen yang pertama itu mengurangi angka kemiskinan perdesaan sedemikian efektif sehingga mampu memperkecil kesenjangan kemiskinan desa-kota. Kebijakan pertumbuhan ekonomi dan kebijakan fiskal daerah terbukti mengurangi kemiskinan di kota lebih efektif daripada di desa, akibatnya justru berdampak memperlebar kesenjangan tersebut. Temuan lain menunjukkan bahwa transformasi perdesaan yang diukur dengan kesempatan kerja non-pertanian di perdesaan tidak cukup efektif mengurangi angka kemiskinan di pedesaan, sehingga tidak berdampak signifikan pada kesenjangan kemiskinan desa-kota. Abstract. This article analyzes some factors which might have determined rural-urban poverty gap in Indonesia. Provincial data for the years of 2000-2020 are analyzed by using panel data regression techniques. The gap between rural-urban poverty rates (dependent variable) is measured by two methods, i.e. rural-urban poverty difference and ratio. Gross regional product per capita, agriculture sector productivity, rural transformation, fiscal capacity index, and rural mean years of schooling are regressed on each of the gap measures. The two models give consistently equivalent signs of the estimated parameters. The independent variables that negatively and significantly affect the dependent variables are productivity of agriculture sector and rural mean years of schooling, whereas those that are positive and significant areGDP/Capita and fiscal capacity index. In other words, the first two independent variables decrease the rural poverty rates so effectively that they can reduce the rural-urban poverty gap. Economic growth policy and regional fiscal policy decrease poverty more effectively in urban than they do in rural areas, and hence they widen the poverty gap. Another finding shows that rural transformation that is measured by non-agriculture employment in rural areas is not so effective to reduce rural poverty, that it does not significantly effect on the poverty gap.
... It means that if agricultural productivity increases, then poverty will also increase. This finding is contradictory with mainstream results from previous studies, including ( (Darko et al. 2018), which found that agricultural productivity will reduce the poverty rates. However, the finding of this study may be more appropriate in case of poverty in East Java province. ...
The aim of the present study is to empirically measure the contribution of drought and productivity of agriculture to the poverty in East Java, Indonesia. The study uses data from 2010 to 2020 by using Rice productivity, Drought as independent variable and poverty as dependent variable. The study includes other important explanatory variables such as human development indexes, irrigation, and GDRP. The present research utilizes the Spatial Econometrics-Random Effect Model which allows for controlling for regional dependency. The results confirm the presence of spatial autocorrelation in poverty, indicating that poverty can spread across the region. The study also reveals a positive and significant relationship between poverty and agricultural productivity growth. However, only wealthier persons, such as middlemen and farmers, may benefit from productivity development while small-scale farmers and vulnerable communities continue to live in poverty. As a consequence, impoverished individuals may need to resort to selling their assets or borrowing money to cover their daily expenses. The study shows a significant negative relationship between irrigation and poverty, highlighting the critical role irrigation plays in helping small-scale farmers increase their income. Therefore, the authors suggest that sustaining the Ministry of Public Works and Public Housing’s irrigation policy could be an effective poverty alleviation strategy.
... Farm labor also supplements household (family) labor during farm production. The labor supply also contributes to the farm expenditure of the households (Darko et al., 2018). Farm labor, therefore, remains a determinant in farm production and food consumption of households (Aryal et al., 2021;Unay-Gailhard & Bojnec, 2019). ...
... Farm labor also supplements household (family) labor during farm production. The labor supply also contributes to the farm expenditure of the households (Darko et al., 2018). Farm labor, therefore, remains a determinant in farm production and food consumption of households (Aryal et al., 2021;Unay-Gailhard & Bojnec, 2019). ...
We examined factors that influence farm size sustenance and food consumption status of rural farm households. We used survey data comprising a sample size of 390 households. The study employed quantile and ordered logistic models to estimate the impacts of farm sustenance indicators on farm size cultivated and food consumption, respectively. We found that farm size is influenced positively by input expenditures, household sizes, types of crops, farm credits and subsidies. Besides, lack of farm labour adversely affected farm sizes of some categories of farmers. Besides, increasing farm input expenditures, lack of labour, farm credits and subsidies reduce the food consumption status of the households. We recommend that policymakers consider an integrated approach to farm sustenance and specific segregated attention to the individual categories of food consumption status of farm households. These could be achieved through the provision of farm credits and subsidies among other factors that sustain farm sizes and food consumption of the households.
... Based on economic theory, the adoption and crop productivity literature [12,24,25,27,30,37], 38,40,43,49] relevant explanatory variables were included in the adoption and impact equations. The variables range from household-level demographic characteristics, credit and information access, land tenure, plot-level technical and managerial factors to climate-and soil-related variables. ...
Background
Increasing agricultural productivity has long been touted as the main avenue to lifting the rural poor out of poverty and ensuring their sustainable development. The adoption of sustainable agricultural practices (SAPs) is vital for spurring agricultural productivity in a changing climate environment. This paper examines the factors (including long-term climate variability) influencing the adoption of multiple SAPs (improved seeds, organic and inorganic fertilizers, and legume intercropping) and their impact on crop productivity.
Methodology
This study uses a nationally representative, geo-referenced plot-level data from a household survey in Nigeria. A multistage sampling technique was used to select households for the survey. The multivariate and ordered probit models were employed to estimate the adoption and intensity of adoption respectively, while the instrumental variables approach was used to examine the impact of the technologies on productivity.
Results
The results provide evidence of interdependences between the SAPs, and that the factors that determine the initial adoption decisions are not necessarily the same factors that influence the intensity of use of the technologies. Climate risks in terms of high variability in temperature and rainfall affect SAPs adoption and their intensity of use. Access to agricultural extension, years of education and off-farm activities of the plot manager, and household wealth influence the use of improved seeds and inorganic fertilizer. Organic fertilizers are used mainly by households with large livestock units and those that live in areas with low soil nutrients and greenness index. In general, the intensity of SAPs adoption is influenced by wage and off-farm activities, and access to agricultural extension services. On the productivity side, inorganic fertilizer is positively correlated with plot-level productivity.
Conclusions
These results have implications for rural development policies in Nigeria aimed at nudging farmers to adopt multiple technologies on their plots, while enhancing an outward shift of their crop production functions. Providing technical and financial resources to extension agents is crucial so they could better reach rural smallholder households with the knowledge and benefits of these SAPs. In addition, smallholder households should diversify their livelihood portfolios to include non-farm income generating activities. Agricultural Research and Development should target factors that respond to climate variabilities (such as drought resistant and early maturing varieties). There is a need for improved infrastructures (road networks to allow easy market access as well as access to credit) that will allow farmers to access these innovations.
... J o u r n a l P r e -p r o o f Numerous studies, including but not limited to, (Ahmad, 2003;Abro, et al., 2014;Dzanku, 2015;Darko, et al., 2018;Islam & Haider, 2018) have been carried out to understand the relationship between agricultural productivity growth and poverty in developing countries using a unidimensional model. Furthermore, except for studies by Ahmad (2003); Abro, et al. (2014), and Islam & Haider (2018), the rest of them have employed yield to proxy agricultural productivity, which measures partial farm productivity. ...
Smallholder agriculture in developing countries is characterized by low productivity. Improving the productive efficiency of farm households is considered one of the paths to increase productivity and reduce poverty. This study analyzed the poverty reduction effects of improving the technical efficiency of cereal-producing farm households using plot-level data from rural Ethiopia. The effects were also evaluated whether they were heterogeneous relative to the level of crop diversification. Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) and stochastic meta-frontier approach were used to estimate the poverty status and the technical efficiency scores, respectively, and the Herfindahl Index (HI) was used to compute crop diversification. The instrumental Tobit Model was specified to estimate the poverty reduction effect of technical efficiency. Our results revealed that the mean technical efficiency of farm households was estimated to be 58%. The poverty estimate results showed that a higher proportion of farm households were multidimensional poor. The incidence of poverty and the mean deprivation score was found to be 57.9% and 44.1%, respectively. Overall, the value of MPI estimated was 31.2%, implying the farm households experienced 31.2% of the total deprivations across all indicators. The HI was 0.51, indicating a moderate degree of crop diversification among farm households. The model results showed that a 10% increase in technical efficiency significantly drives down the household multidimensional poverty by 15.3% at 1% level, keeping other things being constant. Furthermore, ceteris paribus, a 10% increase in technical efficiency significantly reduces household multidimensional poverty by 7.0% and 7.8% at 1% level among moderately diversified and least diversified farm households, respectively. In conclusion, technical efficiency has a higher effect on multidimensional poverty among moderately diversified and least diversified farm households. Therefore, enhancing the productive capacity of farm households among the lower degree of crop diversification to efficiently use production inputs may assist in poverty reduction.
... Accurate measures of production and productivity are, therefore, essential to (i) tracking progress towards the relevant SDG targets; answering fundamental questions on the role of agriculture in household and individual welfare (Darko et al., 2018); and understanding which production factors have the most important role in determining productivity. Ongoing debates about the relationship between (land) productivity and (i) fertilizer use (Harou et al., 2017), (ii) plot/farm size (Bevis and Barrett, 2017;Desiere and Jolliffe, 2018;Gourlay et al., 2017), or (iii) soil quality (Berazneva et al., 2018) reflect the substantial knowledge gaps and the need to improve the accuracy and precision of recommendations for raising productivity in particular locations. ...
... The absence of an impact from high food prices on standard observational measures of food security does not necessarily mean the absence of a problem. While most of the population are net-buyers of food, there is a significant mass of people who are net-sellers (Darko et al., 2018); the finding that, on average, diet quantity and quality are improving is feasible. Moreover, even for those people consuming more food than they produce or sell, the extent to which food price increases may affect people's access to food depends on a larger number of factors beyond the distribution of net sellers and net buyers of food staples. ...
... However, the estimated elasticity is just 10%, implying relatively limited transmission from production to consumption. In line with this finding, Darko et al. (2018) report that, all else being equal, a 1% increase in maize yields in Malawi leads only to an estimated 0.13% increase in consumption per capita. In our analysis, higher values of crop production per capita are also estimated to lead to higher food consumption scores. ...
... Other studies point to the importance of agriculture in indirect access to food. Increased farm income, either from higher productivity (Slavchevska, 2015;Darko et al., 2018;Kim et al., 2019) or from increased commercialization (von Braun, 1995;Ogutu et al., 2019), is found to be linked with improved nutrition, while nutritional benefits from crop diversification are found to be relatively small (Sibhatu and Qaim, 2018;Lovo and Veronesi, 2019). ...
A substantial acceleration in improving nutrition is required to eradicate malnutrition by 2030. Income growth and increased labor productivity are key to realize this, but some income sources and employment sectors might be more effective in reducing malnutrition than others. We investigate the link between income and nutrition in rural Tanzania, using two rounds of the Tanzania National Panel Survey. We use both monetary and non-monetary measures of food consumption, and analyze besides caloric intake also the intake of important micronutrients, such as iron, zinc and vitamin A, and nutrient deficiencies. We compare income by employment sectors and by gender of the earner. We find that income growth is important for improving household nutrition, both in terms of food quantity and quality. We find that a higher share of income from agricultural self-employment as well as jointly earned income is strongly correlated with caloric and micronutrient intake across households. We do not find evidence to support the assertion that a higher share of income earned solely by women is associated with improved nutrition. Our results imply that closing the labor productivity gap between agriculture and rural non-farm sectors, and raising rural incomes from within agriculture, is a more effective strategy to improve nutrition in rural Tanzania than diversifying income away from agriculture.
... Recent statistics in Malawi confirm that 50.7% of the population is poor and 24.5% is ultra-poor, while the caloric intake of 50% of the population is below the minimum level of 2100 calories per day (World Bank, 2017). These figures worsen in the rural population, confirming the link between the performance of the agricultural sector and the welfare of farmers with limited chance of off-farm income diversification (Darko et al., 2018). ...
We investigate the economic distributional effects of soil loss in Malawi, where erosion deprives rural households of the natural capital necessary to boost agricultural production and lifts food security. We employ a two-year dataset combining unique topsoil loss data with socio-economic, agro-ecological and climatic information both at household and plot level. We consider heterogenous impacts of soil loss in productivity, total consumption and caloric intake by estimating an unconditional quantile regression model. The role of different agricultural practices in mitigating the negative impacts of soil loss is also considered to assess cost-effective policy options and compensation mechanisms and to provide aggregated effects. We show that large heterogeneous impacts currently exist across the most exposed population groups and such impacts could translate in a production loss equivalent to 1 to 3% of Malawi’s GDP under different increasing soil erosion scenarios.
... Agricultural sector development directed at increasing agricultural productivity to meet the food needs of the community and the needs of the domestic industry, increase exports, increase farmers' income, expand employment opportunities and promote employment. Agricultural productivity growth is an important component of economic transformation, [2], but in some cases, the agricultural sector is not the main driver of economic growth in a country [3], Statistics show that the development of agricultural land in Indonesia continues to decline but the value of agricultural GDP, especially food crops continues to increase. In the span of 2011 to 2013, the land area in Indonesia is still increasing. ...
... In the study involving poor countries such as India, China, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Indonesia, the key finding shows the agriculture sector also proven effective in contributing to the increasing gross domestic product, on par with the industry or services sectors. A study by Darko et al. (2018) found the agriculture sector has brought positive impact on the welfare of the household in the rural agricultural areas in Malawi. The result indicated the increasing productivity of agriculture activities has a statistically significant positive impact in improving the availability of food and household income among the rural farmers. ...
... Based on the data available, this study makes use of land productivity to measure agricultural productivity. Following other studies (Oseni et al., 2014;Ali et al., 2016;Amare et al., 2018;Darko et al., 2018), we capture agricultural productivity with the agriculture (crop) income per hectare (AGRICPROD). Hectare was computed by summing up the land area of the harvested farmland plots. ...
Purpose
Farmers are the largest group of financially excluded persons in Nigeria, thereby highlighting the supply shortfall in finance to agriculture in Nigeria. Availability of finance would go a long way in improving output and productivity in agriculture, and consequently help in reducing poverty. This study conducts an empirical investigation of the effects of financial inclusion on agricultural productivity in Nigeria.
Design/methodology/approach
This study makes use of the Living Standards Measurement Study–Integrated Surveys on Agriculture (LSMS-ISA). This is a new data set on agricultural households which contains information on agricultural activities and various household activities, including banking, savings and insurance behaviour. Considering the data are such that there are observations for households over three time periods, the study exploits the time series and cross-section dimension of the data by using panel data estimation.
Findings
The empirical results of the study show that financial inclusion, irrespective of how it is measured, has exerted positive and statistically significant effects on agricultural productivity in Nigeria.
Originality/value
While considerable research has been conducted to examine how finance affects broad macroeconomic aggregates, little is known about the effects of finance at the household and individual level. It is important to explicitly account for financial inclusion when examining the effects of finance on individuals and households. This study improves on existing research and offers new insights into the effects of financial inclusion on the economic activities of agricultural households in Nigeria.
... Accurate measurements of crop production, cultivated area, and yield are at the heart of official agricultural statistics and are key to monitoring progress towards national and international development goals, including SDG 2. Further, the survey data underlying these outcomes are frequently used by agricultural economists to investigate a vast array of policy-relevant research topics, including (a) the scale-productivity relationship (Larson et al. 2014;Julien et al. 2019); (b) agricultural productivity impacts of fertilizer use (Harou et al. 2017), soil quality (Berazneva et al. 2018), land misallocation (Restuccia and Santaeulalia-Llopis 2017), and sustainable land management practices (Arslan et al. 2015); (c) farm-and household-level impacts of exposure to extreme weather events (Wineman et al. 2017;McCarthy et al. 2018); (d) the extent and cost of gender differences in agricultural productivity (O'Sullivan et al. 2014;Kilic et al. 2015); (e) the relationships between agricultural and welfare outcomes at the household-and/or individual-level (Carletto, Corral, and Guelfi 2017;Darko et al. 2018); and (f) the comparative effects of agricultural versus non-agricultural growth on poverty reduction (Dorosh and Thurlow 2018;Ivanic and Martin 2018). ...
Understanding the determinants of agricultural productivity requires accurate measurement of crop output and yield. In smallholder production systems across low-and middle-income countries, crop yields have traditionally been assessed based on farmer-reported production and land areas in house-hold/farm surveys, occasionally by objective crop cuts for a subsection of a farmer's plot, and rarely using full-plot harvests. In parallel, satellite data continue to improve in terms of spatial, temporal, and spectral resolution needed to discern performance on smallholder plots. This study evaluates ground-and satellite-based approaches to estimating crop yields and yield responsiveness to inputs, using data on maize from Eastern Uganda. Using unique, simultaneous ground data on yields based on farmer reporting, sub-plot crop cutting, and full-plot harvests across hundreds of smallholder plots, we document large discrepancies among the ground-based measures, particularly among yields based on farmer-reporting versus sub-plot or full-plot crop cutting. Compared to yield measures based on either farmer-reporting or sub-plot crop cutting, satellite-based yield measures explain as much or more variation in yields based on (gold-standard) full-plot crop cuts. Further, estimates of the association between maize yield and various production factors (e.g., fertilizer, soil quality) are similar across crop cut-and satellite-based yield measures, with the use of the latter at times leading to more significant results due to larger sample sizes. Overall, the results suggest a substantial role for satellite-based yield estimation in measuring and understanding agricultural productivity in the developing world.
... While agricultural productivity growth is an important component of economic transformation, such growth is not in itself sufficient for poverty reduction and welfare gains (Darko, Palacios-Lopez, Kilic, & Ricker-Gilbert, 2018), and, in some cases, may not even be a major driver of economic growth (Diao et al., 2018). ...
The past two decades have seen sub-Saharan Africa emphasizing improved agricultural productivity as a major source of economic breakthrough. However, improving agricultural productivity may dampen economic growth, contrary to the prescription of some development economists. The openness of an economy could set in motion the law of comparative advantage,
rendering a less productive agricultural economy relatively better off than the rest of the world. This paper assessed sub-Saharan Africa’s prospects of attaining sustained economic growth through
agricultural productivity improvements. Beginning from a two-sector model, the study examined the relationship between agricultural productivity, manufacturing sector productivity, services sector
productivity, GDP per capita, inflation, oil production, external debt stock, net forest depletion, openness of the economy and economic growth rate. Data from the World Development Indicators of 2017 covering 1960 to 2016 were analyzed for Ghana, one of the top three success stories from the African agricultural initiative. The results showed that GDP per capita, external debt stock, net forest depletion and openness were significant determinants of economic growth rate at the 5% level of significance, service sector productivity was significant at the 10% level, while agricultural productivity, manufacturing sector productivity, oil production and inflation were not statistically significant. The negative but insignificant link between agricultural productivity and economic growth rate, predicts a perverse welfare implication for agricultural productivity improvement through the use of scarce state resources. Ghana, just like the rest of sub-Saharan Africa would need major
policy restructuring, to redirect public investments in agricultural productivity improvement to the services and manufacturing sectors, if the desired sustained real economic growth is to be attained.
(18) (PDF) Agricultural Productivity and Sustained Economic Growth in Sub-Saharan Africa: Evidence from Ghana. Available from: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/329687376_Agricultural_Productivity_and_Sustained_Economic_Growth_in_Sub-Saharan_Africa_Evidence_from_Ghana [accessed Dec 15 2018].
... However, the estimated elasticity is just 10%, implying relatively limited transmission from production to consumption. In line with this finding, Darko et al. (2018) report that, all else being equal, a 1% increase in maize yields in Malawi leads only to an estimated 0.13% increase in consumption per capita. In our analysis, higher values of crop production per capita are also estimated to lead to higher food consumption scores. ...
As extreme weather events intensify due to climate change, it becomes evermore critical to understand how vulnerable households are to these events and the mechanisms households can rely on to minimize losses effectively. This paper analyzes the impacts of the floods that occurred during the 2014/15 growing season in Malawi, using a two-period panel data set. The results show that maize yields and value of production per capita were lower for all households, particularly for those located in moderate and severe flood areas. However, drops in food consumption expenditures were less dramatic, and calories per capita were higher. Only the food consumption score, which is a measure of dietary diversity, was significantly lower, particularly for households located in areas of severe flooding. Although access to social safety nets increased food consumption outcomes, particularly for those located in areas of moderate flooding, the proportion of households with access to certain safety net programs was lower in 2015 compared with 2013. The latter finding suggests that linking these programs more closely to disaster relief efforts could substantially improve welfare outcomes during and after a natural disaster. Finally, potential risk-coping strategies, proxied by access to off-farm income sources, having financial accounts, and social networks, were generally ineffective in mitigating the negative impacts of the floods.
It is widely expected that agriculture would contribute to farmers' food security and nutrition in developing countries. However , studies that directly explore the link between agricultural productivity and micronutrients intake by farmers are scarce. In this paper, we contribute to filling this gap by exploring two key channels by which agricultural production can influence dietary outcomes: a food consumption pathway and a cash revenue pathway. To achieve this, we used three-years panel data of rice farmers collected in the Vakinankaratra region of Madagascar. The results suggest that rice yield is positively and significantly associated with farmers' calorie and micronutrients intake, though the observed elasticities are low. Secondly, raising rice yield has a positive significant impact not only on rice consumption but also on the share of the output sold and the cash revenue from rice sales. Lastly, the results suggest that households with higher cash revenue from rice sales purchase more nutritious foods. Therefore, we conclude that the market represents the channel through which increased rice yield translates into improved micronutrient intake. The findings of this study imply that in order to improve farm households' nutrition through agricultural production, interventions that target yield enhancement should be accompanied by market access measures.
We examine spillovers from agricultural estates to Malawian smallholders within an econometric counterfactual framework. We consider economic spillovers such as income, as well as agrarian spillovers such as yields, harvests, and crop diversity. We identify long-run effects of large agricultural investments on small-scale farmers. For the location of large estates, we use a novel OpenStreetMap dataset, while data on smallholder’s stems from a household survey. We provide evidence for the importance of the distance threshold for spillovers, and explore multiple thresholds. In proximity to estates we find higher groundnut and pigeon pea yields and increased crop diversity. In very close proximity, incomes are also higher. Area under cultivation in total and for maize are smaller for nearby households, while maize yields are not significantly different. Overall, our results suggest that policies should aim to leverage the increased crop diversity and groundnut yields while mitigating potential detrimental effects arising from reduced cultivated land.
Smallholder farmers are among the most vulnerable communities in Sub-Saharan Africa, relying on agriculture for subsistence and employment. The transition from subsistence towards commercial agriculture is a focus area to improve the living conditions of farmers in several African countries, including Malawi. However, a number of barriers still prevents the commercialisation of produce by smallholder farmers. This work aims to identify the key barriers faced by Malawian smallholder farmers to commercialise their produce and to identify their root causes in order to prioritise areas of improvement to facilitate market participation for smallholder farmers.
Using Interpretive Structural Modelling (ISM), the opinions of experts in the field were captured to establish causal and hierarchical relationships among the thirteen identified barriers, which holistically address on-farm and off-farm elements across multiple disciplines, such as agriculture, entrepreneurship, supply chain management, micro- and macro-economy.
A causal mapping method is applied for the first time in the context of smallholder farming. This work is novel in identifying in a structured manner and comprehensively analysing barriers to commercialisation of produce for smallholder farmers in the context of Sub-Saharan Africa, offering a causal hierarchical mapping of the relationships between barriers in Malawi.
The findings show that ‘Poor farmers’ group organisation’ and ‘Lack of market knowledge and understanding’ are the most significant barriers, having the highest driving power and aggravating the other barriers. The findings of this work can have a notable contribution to practice. Policy makers and other related actors can have more clarity on the key barriers that affect all others as well as on their impact pathway, thus being able to prioritise their efforts to effectively address them.
Environmental sustainability considerations in socio-economic welfare has been argued in recent welfare literature. With an emphasis on the role of agricultural employment, this present study explores environmentally sustainable socio-economic welfare in ECOWAS, which features countries abundant in agriculture resources, although with low levels of socio-economic welfare and low carbon emissions. The study utilises a balanced panel data set of observations in respect of all fifteen ECOWAS countries over the period of 2010 to 2019. The Human Sustainable Development Index (HSDI) was used to measure environmentally sustainable socio-economic welfare. On the other hand, agricultural employment was measured using the percentage of the employed population earning their livelihoods from agricultural employment. Panel data fixed effects estimation was used to estimate the model for the study, and the findings were that agricultural employment had a significant adverse influence on environmentally sustainable socio-economic welfare as measured by HSDI, while a further comparison of the findings with that of welfare measured using HDI indicated that agricultural employment also adversely affected HDI. The study recommends that socio-economic welfare be assessed from the view point of environmental sustainability, and the governments of ECOWAS member countries provide strong governance including strong laws and policies to ensure that socio-economic welfare that is environmentally sustainable is realised as abundant agricultural resources as well as agricultural employment are well managed.
Improving the welfare of smallholder farmers through the introduction of improved technologies has gained increased attention in recent times. The focus now transcends the mere development and introduction of these farming technologies to improve productivity alone. Policymakers, particularly those in developing countries now pursue the implementation of interventions that promote the use of improved technologies to advance the welfare of smallholder farmers. However, the impact of such intervention to inform future policy decisions remains largely lacking and under theorized. The current study, therefore, analysed the impact of technology adoption on smallholder farmers’ welfare. We obtained data from 461 technology adopters and non-adopters by using purposive and simple random sampling. Using the propensity score matching technique, we estimated the impact of technology adoption on smallholder farm households. The results show that regional location, educational level, age, and Farmer Base Organisation (FBO) membership are the main determinants of technology adoption among smallholder farmers. Technology adoption had a positive but statistically insignificant impact on welfare. Consumption and clothing expenditure increased with adoption but not healthcare. To improve the impact of technology adoption on smallholder farmer welfare, emphasis should be placed on business supporting/advisory services; agricultural extension outreach, finance/input support among others.
Improved soybean varieties and agronomic practices have been widely disseminated to smallholder farmers in Malawi over the last 15 years. However, there is no empirical evidence on the welfare impacts of adopting improved soybean technologies. This paper estimated the poverty impacts of adopting improved soybean technologies using data from 1,234 households in six soybean growing districts accounting for over 80% of the total soybean production in the country. The results from an endogenous switching regression model showed that 32% of the sample households adopted improved soybean varieties and agronomic practices. The adoption benefits were higher for female-headed households and increased with the household head’s education and cultivated land areas. A comparison of the observed and counterfactual incomes for adopters based on the international poverty line of US$1.90 per capita per day showed a 4.16 percentage-point reduction in poverty among the sample households, translating to over 150,000 people lifted out of poverty. The household head’s education level, household size, cultivated land area, livestock size, and asset ownership are associated with the daily per capita income. The results point to the need for scaling up of improved soybean varieties and agronomic practices for greater impacts on poverty reduction among smallholders in Malawi.
This study identifies the factors associated with smallholder farm households that have risen out of poverty or descended into poverty between 1997 and 2007 in Kenya. The study uses data from a nationwide balanced panel of 1,275 households and data from detailed retrospective 'life history' survey of 84 households that had experienced either an appreciable improvement or decline in their asset wealth over the 10-year panel period. The results indicate that household welfare dynamics are associated with a disparate set of idiosyncratic and unexpected shocks, such as death and chronic illness, demographic factors, proximity to infrastructural facilities, as well as intergenerational wealth transfers.
Abstract The effects of elevated [CO2] on 25 variables describing soybean physiology, growth and yield are reviewed using meta-analytic techniques. This is the first meta-analysis to our knowledge performed on a single crop species and summarizes the effects of 111 studies. These primary studies include numerous soybean growth forms, various stress and experimental treatments, and a range of elevated [CO2] levels (from 450 to 1250 p.p.m.), with a mean of 689 p.p.m. across all studies. Stimulation of soybean leaf CO2 assimilation rate with growth at elevated [CO2] was 39%, despite a 40% decrease in stomatal conductance and a 11% decrease in Rubisco activity. Increased leaf CO2 uptake combined with an 18% stimulation in leaf area to provide a 59% increase in canopy photosynthetic rate. The increase in total dry weight was lower at 37%, and seed yield still lower at 24%. This shows that even in an agronomic species selected for maximum investment in seed, several plant level feedbacks prevent additional investment in reproduction, such that yield fails to reflect fully the increase in whole plant carbon uptake. Large soil containers (> 9 L) have been considered adequate for assessing plant responses to elevated [CO2]. However, in open-top chamber experiments, soybeans grown in large pots showed a significant threefold smaller stimulation in yield than soybeans grown in the ground. This suggests that conclusions about plant yield based on pot studies, even when using very large containers, are a poor reflection of performance in the absence of any physical restriction on root growth. This review supports a number of current paradigms of plant responses to elevated [CO2]. Namely, stimulation of photosynthesis is greater in plants that fix N and have additional carbohydrate sinks in nodules. This supports the notion that photosynthetic capacity decreases when plants are N-limited, but not when plants have adequate N and sink strength. The root : shoot ratio did not change with growth at elevated [CO2], sustaining the charge that biomass allocation is unaffected by growth at elevated [CO2] when plant size and ontogeny are considered.
ABSTRACT PATHWAYS OUT OF POVERTY IN RURAL MOZAMBIQUE By Benedito Armando Cunguara This research addresses three questions: (i) how have the incidence of poverty and the distribution of income changed? (ii) what factors are associated with rural household income change? and (iii) what factors are associated with moving,out of or into poverty in the short-run? The analysis presented is based on a nationally representative two- period panel data set from Mozambique, covering the years 2001/2 and 2004/5. We cannot unambiguously,argue that poverty headcount in 2005 (a year of more widespread
Combining qualitative–quantitative approaches, we examined the reasons behind household movements into and out of poverty across Kenya, and how they differ by livelihood zones. Among the 4773 households studied, 42 per cent were poor 15 years ago and 50 per cent are poor at the present time. Over the same period, 12 per cent of the households escaped poverty, while another 20 per cent fell into poverty. While some national trends were evident – such as the role of health problems in driving people into poverty and the importance of off-farm income in getting them out – many reasons differ across livelihood zones, thus this paper provides an example of how regionally differentiated anti-poverty policies can be investigated and designed. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Agricultural growth has long been recognized as an important instrument for poverty reduction. Yet, measurements of this relationship are still scarce and not always reliable. The authors present additional evidence at both the sectoral and household levels based on recent data. Results show that rural poverty reduction has been associated with growth in yields and in agricultural labor productivity, but that this relation varies sharply across regional contexts. GDP growth originating in agriculture induces income growth among the 40 percent poorest, which is on the order of three times larger than growth originating in the rest of the economy. The power of agriculture comes not only from its direct poverty reduction effect but also from its potentially strong growth linkage effects on the rest of the economy. Decomposing the aggregate decline in poverty into a rural contribution, an urban contribution, and a population shift component shows that rural areas contributed more than half the observed aggregate decline in poverty. Finally, using the example of Vietnam, the authors show that rapid growth in agriculture has opened pathways out of poverty for farming households. While the effectiveness of agricultural growth in reducing poverty is well established, the effectiveness of public investment in inducing agricultural growth is still incomplete and conditional on context. © The Author 2009. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/The World Bank. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: [email protected]
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Widespread rural poverty in Africa and the success of Asia’s Green Revolution suggest that agriculture is a key sector for African development. However, in response to recent skepticism, this paper examines whether the conventional wisdom about agriculture’s contribution to the development process can still be applied to Africa today. We first outline the debate between the proponents of agriculture and its skeptics before presenting a series of case studies reflecting the heterogeneity of initial conditions facing low-income African countries. Drawing on economy-wide modeling, these case studies contrast the effectiveness of alternative growth strategies in reducing poverty. The findings indicate that while Africa does face many new challenges unlike those faced by Asian countries, there is little evidence to suggest that these countries can bypass a broad-based agricultural revolution to successfully launch their economic transformations.
We use 20 household surveys for India's 15 major states spanning 1960–1994 to study how the sectoral composition of economic growth and initial conditions interact to influence how much growth reduced consumption poverty. The elasticities of measured poverty to farm yields and development spending did not differ significantly across states. But the elasticities of poverty to (urban and rural) non-farm output varied appreciably, and the differences were quantitatively important to the overall rate of poverty reduction. States with higher elasticities did not experience higher rates of non-farm growth. The non-farm growth process was more pro-poor in states with initially higher literacy, higher farm productivity, higher rural living standards (relative to urban areas), lower landlessness and lower infant mortality.
This paper examines the recent decentralization of governance in Indonesia and its impact on local infrastructure provision. The decentralization of decisionmaking power to local jurisdictions in Indonesia may have improved the matching of public infrastructures provision with local preferences. However, decentralization has made local public infrastructures depend on local resources. Due to differences in initial endowments, this may result in the divergence of local public infrastructures in rich and poor jurisdictions. Using data from village-level panel surveys conducted in 1996, 2000, and 2006, this paper finds that (1) local public infrastructures depend on local resources, (2) decentralization has improved the availability of local public infrastructures, (3) local jurisdictions are converging to a similar level of local public infrastructure, and (4) to some extent, decentralized public infrastructures' provision reflects local preferences.
To what extent do India's rural poor share in agricultural growth? Combining data from 24 household sample surveys spanning 35 years with other sources, we estimate a model of the joint determination of consumption-poverty measures, agricultural wages, and food prices. We find that higher farm productivity brought both absolute and relative gains to poor rural households. A large share of the gains were via wages and prices, though these effects took time. The benefits to the poor were not confined to those near the poverty line. CONTENTS Acknowledgments .................................................... iv 1. Introduction .......................................................1 2. Model ............................................................5 3. Estimates .........................................................9 Data ........................................................... 9 Results ........................................................ 12 4. Implications ................
A common approach to evaluating robustness to omitted variable bias is to observe coefficient movements after inclusion of controls. This is informative only if selection on observables is informative about selection on unobservables. Although this link is known in theory (i.e. Altonji, Elder and Taber (2005 —, —, and —, “Selection on Observed and Unobserved Variables: Assessing the Effectiveness of Catholic Schools,” Journal of Political Economy, 2005, 113 (1), 151–184.)), very few empirical papers approach this formally. I develop an extension of the theory which connects bias explicitly to coefficient stability. I show that it is necessary to take into account coefficient and R-squared movements. I develop a formal bounding argument. I show two validation exercises and discuss application to the economics literature.
The widespread increase in rural purchasing power under the Green Revolution in Asia during the 1970s was key to increased rural employment and industrialization. Studies suggested that an extra dollar of agricultural income was typically associated with an additional $0.80 of nonagricultural income from local enterprises stimulated by the spending of farm households. Studies in Africa, where the Green Revolution was harder to discern, tended to be much more pessimistic. This report revisits these issues using especially detailed panel data sets on rural consumption and incomes, collected by IFPRI and collaborating national institutions for a variety of purposes during the mid to late 1980s in Burkina Faso, Niger, Senegal, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. Results suggest that household spending of higher rural incomes from increased exports has the potential to greatly stimulate further rural income increases, on a scale that even surpasses experience in Asia. Central to this is the claim that many of the goods and services that figure heavily in rural consumption patterns in Sub-Saharan Africa are nontradables at current transport costs and prices. These include perishable fruits, vegetables, animal products, and prepared foods, services of all kinds, local handicrafts, and some bulky local starches of too low value to bear the costs of importing or exporting. By focusing on the nontradable nature of large sectors of African rural economies, the report evokes a theme central to many of IFPRI's fieldwork-based studies: why some development strategies are more effective at achieving both growth and poverty alleviation than others. Sustained growth in rural incomes that is widely spread across households is shown to be an effective way to furnish the sustained additional local purchasing power necessary to promote aggregate production of nontradable items, while increasing the incomes of large numbers of poor people. The report does not deal with the interventions necessary to start growth in rural areas, other than to illustrate that it must involve bringing new external funds into localities on a recurring basis, such as would be the case from expansion of agricultural exports.
Most of the world’s poorest people live in rural areas. They derive a large share of income from agriculture, as small farmers or as workers – or as both. Agricultural development is therefore often seen as the key to reducing poverty, especially rural poverty. In most of sub-Saharan Africa, for example, where the rural poor are mostly small farmers, it is clear that increasing the efficiency of these farmers vis-à-vis large farmers (or of the country as a whole vis-à-vis competing countries) improves the small farmers’ condition. They can expand their sales and/or can produce their own subsistence with less effort or lower cash costs (for a full discussion see World Bank, 1986).
Although poverty reduction policies in developing countries hinge on the link between smallholder productivity and welfare, micro level empirical evidence on this is limited in sub-Saharan Africa and neglects the multidimensionality of welfare. This article contributes through investigating the productivity-poverty relationship using a number of welfare measures with a three-period panel dataset for Ghana. The findings are that welfare is increasing with labour productivity irrespective of the measure used, but that dramatic increases in productivity would be required to achieve meaningful poverty reduction.
In a study of the effect of civil war exposure on local collective action outcomes in Sierra Leone, Bellows and Miguel (2009) employ a coefficient stability approach to assess the importance of omitted variable bias building on Altonji et al. (2005a). Here we clarify the econometric assumptions underlying Bellows and Miguel (2009), and extend their analysis using data on dependent variable reliability ratios and the method developed in Oster (2015).
In this article, we describe twopm, a command for fitting two-part models for mixed discrete-continuous outcomes. In the two-part model, a binary choice model is fit for the probability of observing a positive-versus-zero outcome. Then, conditional on a positive outcome, an appropriate regression model is fit for the positive outcome. The twopm command allows the user to leverage the capabilities of predict and margins to calculate predictions and marginal effects and their standard errors from the combined first- and second-part models. Copyright 2015 by StataCorp LP.
This paper investigates the effects of primary school choices on cognitive and non-cognitive development in children using data from the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children (LSAC). We militate against the measurement problems that are associated with individual unobserved heterogeneity by exploiting the richness of LSAC data and applying contemporary econometric approaches. We find that sending children to Catholic or other independent primary schools has no significant effect on their cognitive and non-cognitive outcomes. The literature now has evidence from three different continents that the returns to attending Catholic primary schools are no different than public schools.
First published in 1989, this book deals with the impact of cereal production upon the Third World, specifically ‘Modern Varieties’ (MVs). Using evidence from plant breeding, economics and nutrition science, the authors seek to pinpoint what has been achieved, what has gone wrong and what needs to be done in future.
Although the technical innovations of MVs mean more employment, cheaper food and less risk for small farmers, the reduction in crop diversity increases the risk of danger from pests and though MVs enlarge cereal stocks, many are too poor to afford them.
The book concludes that technical breakthroughs alone won’t solve deep-rooted social problems and that only new policies and research priorities will increase the choices, assets and power of the rural poor.
Poverty reduction efforts aim at changing those household characteristics that are judged important determinants of household welfare and poverty status. We model the determinants of poverty for Malawian households by conducting an empirical multivariate analysis of household welfare primarily using data from the 1997–98 Malawi Integrated Household Survey. Using this model to simulate the effects of changes in key household characteristics, we are able to assess the likely impact on poverty of a number of poverty reduction policy interventions. The simulations show that higher levels of educational attainment, especially for women, and the reallocation of household labor away from agriculture and into the trade and services sector of the economy will prove effective in reducing poverty in Malawi.
During the late 1980s and early 1990s improvements in health and education and progress in poverty reduction ground to a halt, or began to be eroded, in many developing regions and in the transition countries of Eastern Europe and Central Asia. The DAC International Development Targets (IDTs) reflect the concern of development agencies and their developing country partners about these trends (see Table 1 in the Overview article in this issue). The present article considers whether these targets are attainable. The structure of the article is as follows. The following two sections review the economic literature and examine what data from the 1980s and 1990s can tell us about the determinants of changes in poverty and human development over this period. The next two sections outline the methods of the poverty projections and give estimates of poverty in 2015 under various scenarios, followed by projections for the human development targets with estimates for infant, under-five and maternal mortality and primary school enrolment rates. The final section draws together the key conclusions regarding the attainability of the DAC targets.
Agricultural growth in Africa has accelerated, yet most of this growth has been driven by land expansion. Land expansion potential is reaching its limits, urging governments to shift towards a green revolution type of productivity-led growth. Given the huge public investments required, this paper aims to assess the potential impacts of a green revolution. Results from a CGE model for Ghana show that green revolution type growth is strongly pro-poor and provides substantial transfers to the rest of the economy, thus providing a powerful argument to raise public expenditure on agriculture to make a green revolution happen in Africa. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
This article provides theoretical reasoning and empirical evidence that international migration decisions are influenced by
relative as well as absolute income considerations. Potential gains in absolute income through migration are likely to play
an important role in households’ migration decisions, but international migration by household members who hold promise for
success as labor migrants can also be an effective strategy to improve a household’s income position relative to others in
the household’s reference group. The findings reported in this article provide empirical support for the hypothesis that relative
deprivation plays a significant role in Mexico-to-U. S. migration decisions. The findings also suggest that this migration
is an effective mechanism for achieving income gains in households that send migrants to the U.S. and that households wisely
choose as migrants those of their members who are most likely to provide net income gains.
Spring wheat cv. Minaret crop stands were grown under ambient and elevated CO2 concentrations at seven sites in Germany, Ireland, the UK, Belgium and the Netherlands. Six of the sites used open-top chambers and one used a controlled environment mimicking field conditions. The effect of elevated CO2 for a range of N application regimes, O3 concentrations, and growth temperatures on flag leaf photosynthesis was studied. Before anthesis, flag leaf photosynthesis was stimulated about 50% by 650 compared with 350 μmol mol−1 CO2 at all sites, regardless of other treatments. Furthermore, there was no evidence of a decrease in photosynthetic capacity of flag leaves due to growth at elevated CO2 before anthesis, even for low N treatments. However, photosynthetic capacity, particularly carboxylation capacity, of flag leaves was usually decreased by growth at elevated CO2 after anthesis, especially in low N treatments. Acclimation of photosynthesis to elevated CO2 therefore appears to occur only slowly, consistent with a response to changes in sink–source relationships, rather than a direct response. Effect of elevated CO2 on stomatal conductance was much more variable between sites and treatments, but on average was decreased by ~10% at 650 compared with 350 μmol mol−1 CO2. Carboxylation capacity of flag leaves was decreased by growth at elevated O3 both before and after anthesis, regardless of CO2 concentration.
One of the major goals of the European Stress Physiology and Climate Experiment (ESPACE-wheat) was to investigate the sensitivity of wheat growth and productivity to the combined effects of changes in CO2 concentration, ozone and other physiological stresses. Experiments were performed at different sites throughout Europe, over three consecutive growing-seasons using open-top chambers. This paper summarizes the main experimental findings of the effects of CO2 enrichment and other factors i.e. ozone (O3), drought stress or nitrogen supply on the biomass and yield of spring wheat (Triticum aestivum cv. Minaret). Final harvest data from different sites and seasons were statistically analysed: (1) to identify main effects and interactions between experimentally controlled factors; and (2) to evaluate quantitative relationships between environmental variables and biological responses. Generally, ‘Minaret’ wheat did not respond significantly to O3, suggesting that this cultivar is relatively tolerant to the O3 levels applied. The main effect of CO2 was a significant enhancement of grain yield and above-ground biomass in almost all experiments. Significant interactions between CO2 and other factors were not common, although modifications in different N- and water supplies also led to significant effects on grain yield and biomass. In addition, climatic factors (in particular: mean air temperature and global radiation) were identified as important co-variables affecting grain yield or biomass, repectively. On average, the yield increase as a result of a doubling of [CO2] was 35% compared with that observed at ambient CO2 concentrations. However, linear regressions of grain yield or above-ground biomass for individual experiments revealed a large variability in the quantitative responses of ‘Minaret’ wheat to CO2 enrichment (yield increase ranging from 11 to 121%). Hence, CO2 responsiveness was shown to differ considerably when the same cultivar of wheat was grown at different European locations. Multiple regression analyses perfomed to evaluate the relative importance of the measured environmental parameters on grain yield indicated that although yield was significantly related to five independent variables (24 h mean CO2 concentration, 12 h mean O3 concentration, temperature, radiation, and drought stress), a large proportion of the observed variability remained unexplained.
The poor spend much of their income on food, depend primarily on labour earnings, and tend to reside in marginal agricultural areas. To reduce poverty, agricultural research should aim to ensure adequate food supplies by developing yield-increasing technologies, to increase labour demand by developing labour-using technologies and to develop technologies suitable for marginal areas. This article seeks to identify “appropriate” technologies that agricultural research should generate for poverty reduction. The identification is based on a review of the experience of the Green Revolution in rice production in Asia and an assessment of the changing structure of income sources among rural households in the Philippines.
The failure to recognize the general equilibrium effects of agricultural modernization in alleviating poverty in the general economy is a significant problem, causing agricultural research to not receive credit for its contribution to poverty alleviation. That issue is analyzed as the first part of the paper. The importance of the household as the place where a significant share of a society's human capital is produced is discussed in the second part. These forms of human capital include cognitive skills, values, vocational skills, nutrition and health. The way each contributes to poverty alleviation is discussed, together with the importance of new technology for the household.
Poor people in low-income countries are no less concerned about improving their lot and that of their children than those of us who have incomparably more income. They are also competent in using their meager resources. Many low-income countries have advanced substantially in recent decades in improving the quality of their population and in acquiring useful knowledge. These achievements imply favorable economic prospects, provided they are not dissipated by politics.
This paper examines the recent decentralization of governance in Indonesia and its impact on local infrastructure provision. The decentralization of decisionmaking power to local jurisdictions in Indonesia may have improved the matching of public infrastructures provision with local preferences. However, decentralization has made local public infrastructures depend on local resources. Due to differences in initial endowments, this may result in the divergence of local public infrastructures in rich and poor jurisdictions. Using data from village-level panel surveys conducted in 1996, 2000, and 2006, this paper finds that (1) local public infrastructures depend on local resources, (2) decentralization has improved the availability of local public infrastructures, (3) local jurisdictions are converging to a similar level of local public infrastructure, and (4) to some extent, decentralized public infrastructures' provision reflects local preferences.
Welfare distributional effects in a food producing economy of changes in the relative price of food are analyzed, allowing for labor market responses. Conditions for signing the welfare effects are derived for a stylized agricultural household and are tested for Bangladesh. Point estimates suggest that wage responses are unlikely to be strong enough to reject the partial equilibrium view that higher food prices have adverse distributional effects in the short run. Long-run welfare effects do appear to be more favorable to the poor, though it takes three or four years before the rual poor start to gain from a food price increase. Copyright 1990 by Royal Economic Society.
This paper uses farm survey data from Eastern Province, Zambia to show that regional income multipliers arming from agricultural growth may be stronger than previously thought for Sub-Saharan Africa. However, the growth multipliers are driven primarily by household consumption demands) and they arise largely within the agricultural sector itself because of strong marginal budget shares for nontradable foods. Policies and investments to promote the supply response and local marketing of nontradable foods could greatly enhance the income and employment impacts of agricultural growth. Copyright 1995 by Oxford University Press.
This paper uses a natural experiment approach to identify the effects of an exogenouschange in future pension benefits on workers’ training participation. We use uniquematched survey and administrative data for male employees in the Dutch public sectorwho were born in 1949 or 1950. Only the latter were subject to a major pension reformthat diminished their pension rights. We find that this exogenous shock to pension rightspostpones expected retirement and increases participation in training courses amongolder employees, although exclusively for those employed in large organizations.
Taking advantage of consistent poverty and income inequality data for 12 Latin American countries between 1970 and 1994, we analyze the determinants of changes in the incidence of urban and rural poverty and in Gini coefficients over spells of years, stressing in particular the role of aggregate income growth. We find that income growth reduces urban and rural poverty but not inequality. We also find that income growth is more effective in reducing urban poverty if the levels of inequality and poverty are lower, and the levels of secondary education higher. We show that there is asymmetry in the impact of growth on poverty and inequality, with recession having strong negative effects on both poverty and inequality. Since growth does not reduce inequality, economic cycles create ratchet effects on the level of inequality. However, post-structural adjustment growth is quite effective at reducing poverty, particularly if inequality is low.
- World Bank
Farm size, productivity and earnings
- S Acharya
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