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Can agricultural households farm their way out of poverty ?

Author

Listed:
  • Dabalen,Andrew L.
  • Mcgee,Kevin Robert
  • Siwatu,Gbemisola Oseni
  • Dabalen,Andrew L.
  • Mcgee,Kevin Robert
  • Siwatu,Gbemisola Oseni
Abstract
This paper examines the determinants of agricultural productivity and its link to poverty using nationally representative data from the Nigeria General Household Survey Panel, 2010/11. The findings indicate an elasticity of poverty reduction with respect to agricultural productivity of between 0.25 to 0.3 percent, implying that a 10 percent increase in agricultural productivity will decrease the likelihood of being poor by between 2.5 and 3 percent. To increase agricultural productivity, land, labor, fertilizer, agricultural advice, and diversification within agriculture are the most important factors. As commonly found in the literature, the results indicate the inverse-land size productivity relationship. More specifically, a 10 percent increase in harvested land size will decrease productivity by 6.6 percent, all else being equal. In a simulation exercise where land quality is assumed to be constant across small and large holdings, the results show that if farms in the top land quintile had half the median yield per hectare of farms in the lowest quintile, production of the top quintile would be 10 times higher. The higher overall values of harvests from larger land sizes are more likely because of cultivation of larger expanses of land, rather than from efficient production. It should be noted that having larger land sizes in itself is not positively correlated with a lower likelihood of being poor. This is not to say that having larger land sizes is not important for farming, but rather it indicates that increasing efficiency is the more important need that could lead to poverty reduction for agricultural households.

Suggested Citation

  • Dabalen,Andrew L. & Mcgee,Kevin Robert & Siwatu,Gbemisola Oseni & Dabalen,Andrew L. & Mcgee,Kevin Robert & Siwatu,Gbemisola Oseni, 2014. "Can agricultural households farm their way out of poverty ?," Policy Research Working Paper Series 7093, The World Bank.
    • Handle: RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:7093
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
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    Cited by:

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    2. Pedro Andrés Garzón Delvaux & Sergio Gomez y Paloma, 2018. "Access to common resources and food security: Evidence from National Surveys in Nigeria," Food Security: The Science, Sociology and Economics of Food Production and Access to Food, Springer;The International Society for Plant Pathology, vol. 10(1), pages 121-140, February.
    3. Adegbite, Olayinka O. & Machethe, Charles L., 2020. "Bridging the financial inclusion gender gap in smallholder agriculture in Nigeria: An untapped potential for sustainable development," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 127(C).
    4. Mathias Kloss & Thomas Kirschstein & Steffen Liebscher & Martin Petrick, 2019. "Robust Productivity Analysis: An application to German FADN data," Papers 1902.00678, arXiv.org, revised Feb 2019.

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