Farm size,relative efficiency and agrarian policy in Côte d'Ivoire: profit function analysis of rice farms

This paper examines the relative economic efficiency of small and large rice farms in Côte d'Ivoire using a profit function approach. No differences in the relative economic efficiency of small and large farms were found. This conclusion is robust under alternative model specifications. Agrarian reforms directed towards further concentration of landholding for large farms in Côte d'Ivoire cannot be justified based on economic efficiency. Results show that access to credit and use of modern rice varieties significantly increase profits. To improve technical efficiency of rice farms, an accelerated program to provide information, credit, improved seeds and other inputs is needed. When all the farms (i.e. large and small) are taken together, there is evidence of allocative inefficiency. Strategies are needed to remove such management related inefficiencies in rice production either through the development of a better market price information system or effective farmer-oriented technical training programs by rice extension workers.     

Shadow wages, allocative inefficiency, and labor supply in smallholder agriculture

This article introduces a method for estimating structural labor supply models in the presence of unobservable wages and deviations of households' marginal revenue product of self‐employed labor from their shadow wage. This method is therefore robust to a wide range of assumptions about labor allocation decisions in the presence of uncertainty, market frictions, locational preferences, etc. We illustrate the method using data from rice producers in Côte d'Ivoire. These data, like previous studies, reveal significant systematic differences between shadow wages and the marginal revenue product of family farm labor. We demonstrate how one can exploit systematic deviations, in the present case related to household characteristics such as the land/labor endowment ratio, to control for both unobservable wages and prospective allocative inefficiency in labor allocation in structural household labor supply estimation.     

Modeling farmers' decisions on child labor and schooling in the cocoa sector: a multinomial logit analysis in Côte d'Ivoire

Since 2000, children working in the cocoa sector of Côte d'Ivoire have found themselves in the media spotlight. This situation has assumed particular importance because approximately 40% of the world's cocoa production occurs in Côte d'Ivoire. Concerned parties have since taken great interest in this thorny issue. There is a need to better understand the reality of child labor utilization in this sector. This article investigates child labor issues in the cocoa sector of Côte d'Ivoire in conjunction with schooling status of children. The study is based on a survey done in 2002, over a representative sample of more than 11,000 members of cocoa households. The multinomial logit model is used to capture choice probabilities across work and/or school options. The results reveal that child labor in cocoa farms and nonenrollment in schools are significant. Moreover, many children are involved in potentially dangerous and/or harmful tasks. Data also highlight gender and age dimensions in the participation of children in tasks and the way labor is allocated. Econometric results generally indicate that the gender and age of children, whether or not the child is the biological child of the household head, parents' education, the origin of the farmer, household welfare, household size, the household dependency ratio, the size of other perennial crop farms, the number of sharecroppers working with the household head, and communities' characteristics are all pertinent in explaining the child work/schooling outcome in the cocoa sector of Côte d'Ivoire.     

West African Insurgencies in Agrarian Perspective: Côte d’Ivoire and Sierra Leone Compared

This paper examines agrarian issues in civil wars in Côte d’Ivoire and Sierra Leone. Attention is paid to two different ways in which lineage society evolved during the colonial and post‐colonial periods. The motivations of fighters are related to these different trajectories of agrarian social change. In Côte d’Ivoire youth militia fought to uphold a lineage‐based social order, but in Sierra Leone a comparable group of young fighters sought to overturn it. Large migrant populations on a forest frontier are an important factor in Côte d’Ivoire, while in Sierra Leone significance attaches to an excluded agrarian underclass. Not all African conflicts are ethnic conflicts; autochthony is shown to be a factor in one conflict and class in the other. Approaches to post‐war reconstruction based on undifferentiated notions of community should be resisted.     

Relative efficiency of women as farm managers: Profit function analysis in Côte d'Ivoire

The efficiency of women farmers in the agricultural sector of developing countries is passionately debated. Very few studies have examined this issue in African agriculture. All previous studies were based on production functions, but have been criticised as suffering from simultaneous equation bias because the input levels are endogenous. The profit function method avoids these problems. No previous study has used the profit function method to lest for technical, allocative and economic efficiency differences between women and men farmers. The objective of this paper was to determine whether women rice farmers are less efficient than men rice farmers in Côte d'Ivoire using the restricted normalised profit function method. Our results show that the relative degree of efficiency of women is similar to that of men. The paper provides empirical support for efforts to eliminate bias against women farmers in African agriculture.     

Symposium on Infant Industries: A Comment

This paper uses the fiscal response framework to investigate the extent to which different categories of foreign aid flows, namely project aid, programme aid, technical assistance and food aid, displace public savings and affect the recipient country's dependence on aid, using time series data for Côte d'Ivoire for the period 1975–99.The results indicate that, in general, project aid flows tend to reduce public savings and worsen Côte d'Ivoire's dependence on aid more than the other categories of aid flows. This finding therefore suggests that accounting for aid heterogeneity in aid studies as well as aid policies design and implementation could be crucial in improving aid effectiveness to achieve the Millennium Development Goals.     

Gold mining and development in Côte d’Ivoire: Trajectories,opportunities and oversights

Over the past four decades, many countries in sub-Saharan Africa have undergone different waves of mining sector reform in a bid to catalyse growth. The focus of these exercises has been mainly to attract foreign investment to develop and at times, rejuvenate, export-led large-scale mining and accompanying mineral exploration activity. This despite yielding disappointing improvements, developmentally and economically of the sector. Perhaps even more significantly, however, is that under reform, most of the region’s governments have overlooked the importance of formalising and supporting artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM), which, by comparison, has a much greater impact locally and in many instances, developmentally. This article contributes to the body of literature on mining sector reform in sub-Saharan Africa, focusing on the case of Côte d'Ivoire. Drawing on findings from an extended period of fieldwork, the article examines critically how a large scale mining bias in Côte d’Ivoire has contributed to the marginalization of ASM. Consistent with most analysis of mining sector reform in sub-Saharan Africa, in Côte d’Ivoire, the government has successfully established an attractive investment climate and put aside vast parcels of land for multinational companies while simultaneously neglecting the needs of artisanal and small-scale operators.     

Securing rural land transactions in Africa. An Ivorian perspective

A good deal of research has highlighted the surge and development of rural land sales and tenancy contracts in West Africa. However, the commoditization of land, especially through sales, does not appear to be obvious, as land transactions appear to be a major source of tenure insecurity and land conflicts. This issue is linked with the broader issue of identification and recognition of both the land rights that are being transferred and people holding them. This article deals with tensions and conflicts in land transactions in Côte d’Ivoire and discusses how these transactions might be secured in a context where most transactions occur outside the legal framework. The 1998 Law aims to organise a rapid transition towards private property rights through a nationwide certification and titling program. Due to the socio-political situation, it was only in 2010 that the first certificates were issued and even independently of current political turmoil, there are grounds for doubting the effective implementation of the law. The objective of this article is to consider the issue of securing land transactions in the pre-certification/titling context, drawing from the author's intensive field research on land transactions in Côte d’Ivoire. A first section describes the main types of rural land transactions in Côte d’Ivoire. The second section outlines the sources of tensions and conflicts arising from these transactions. The third section assesses the practices that have emerged spontaneously in rural areas to secure transactions. The fourth section considers the needs and conditions for a public intervention regarding the security of land transactions.     

Estimating the impact of farmer field schools in sub‐Saharan Africa: the case of cocoa

This study measures the economic impact of the first phase of the Cocoa Livelihood Program (CLP‐I), a current World Cocoa Foundation (WCF) project, sponsored by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and aimed at improving the livelihood of over 200,000 small cocoa producers in sub‐Saharan Africa via training, crop diversification, and farmer‐based organizations. Using data collected from 2,048 pre‐ and post‐CLP‐I interviews of cocoa producers in Ghana, Cote d'Ivoire, Nigeria, and Cameroon, the results show that yield enhancements attributable to CLP‐I are 32%, 34%, 50%, and 62% in Ghana, Côte d'Ivoire, Nigeria, and Cameroon, respectively. Using a total program cost of $151–$200 per beneficiary and estimated annual benefits of $109–$322 per beneficiary over 25 years, the benefit‐cost ratios are estimated to range from $18 to $62 for every dollar spent on human capital development. These results suggest the WCF should endeavor to increase the number of farmers who receive all, not some, of the components of the program. This would not only help ensure that each producer obtains as much human capital as possible from each of the training programs but increases the probability of reaching the CLP goal of doubling the income of cocoa‐growing households.     

Contractual Practice and Land Conflicts: The ‘Plant & Share’ Arrangement in Côte d'Ivoire

This paper tackles the broad issue of agrarian contracts, property rights and conflicts in the context of rural Côte d'Ivoire. Since the beginning of the 2000s, a new type of contractual arrangement has been developing rapidly: the ‘Plant & Share’ contract. Through such a contract, a landowner provides the land to a farmer who develops a perennial tree crop plantation; when production starts, the plantation, the plantation and the land, or the product is shared. The aim of the paper is to discuss the conflictive features of the arrangement. I argue that this contract, in spite of its potential for tensions and conflicts, constitutes an alternative to the much more conflictive land sales that currently dominate extra‐familial land transfers in the country.     

Mismeasurement and efficiency estimates: Evidence from smallholder survey data in Africa

Smallholder agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa is commonly characterised by high levels of technical inefficiency. However, much of this characterisation relies on self-reported input and production data, which are prone to systematic measurement error. We show theoretically that non-classical measurement error introduces multiple identification challenges and sources of bias in estimating smallholders' technical inefficiency. We then empirically examine the implications of measurement error for the estimation of technical inefficiency using smallholder farm survey data from Ethiopia, Malawi, Nigeria and Tanzania. We find that measurement error in agricultural input and production data leads to a substantial upward bias in technical inefficiency estimates (by up to 85% for some farmers). Our results suggest that existing estimates of technical efficiency in sub-Saharan Africa may be severe underestimates of smallholders' actual efficiency and what is commonly attributed to farmer inefficiency may be an artefact of mismeasurement in agricultural data. Our results raise questions about the received wisdom on African smallholders' production efficiency and prior estimates of the productivity of agricultural inputs. Improving the measurement of agricultural data can improve our understanding of smallholders' production efficiencies and improve the targeting of productivity-enhancing technologies.     

Mechanization in land preparation and agricultural intensification: The case of rice farming in the Cote d'Ivoire

It is critically important to intensify farming systems in sub-Saharan Africa by disseminating improved agronomic practices and increasing the application of modern inputs. One of the region's problems is that proper land preparation is difficult due to the scarcity of draft animals and the underdevelopment of the tractor rental market. Our analysis of rice production in the Cote d'Ivoire reveals that farmers who use tractors in land preparation more intensively apply fertilizer and use more labor to carefully implement proper agronomic practices, thereby raising productivity. Thus, the diffusion of tractors appears to be key to the intensification of rice farming systems in sub-Saharan Africa.     

Estimation of input-oriented technical efficiency using a nonhomogeneous stochastic production frontier model

Technical inefficiency can be modeled as either input‐oriented (IO) or output‐oriented (OO). However, in the estimation of parametric stochastic production frontier models which use maximum likelihood method only the OO measure is used. In this article we consider a simple nonhomogeneous production function and estimate it with both IO and OO specifications. A sample of 80 Spanish dairy data (1993–1998) is used to estimate both models. We consider one output (liters of milk) and four variable inputs (viz., number of cows, kilograms of concentrates, hectares of land, and labor [measured in man‐equivalent units]). We find that returns to scale (RTS) and technical efficiency results derived from these models are different because either estimated technologies are different, or they are evaluated at different points. Using a Monte Carlo analysis we show that if RTS is close to unity differences in the estimates of RTS and technical efficiency are smaller. This holds true for estimates of both RTS and technical efficiency.     

Spatial Spillovers on Input‐specific Inefficiency of Dutch Arable Farms

Traditional benchmarking implicitly assumes that decision making units operate in isolation from their peers. For arable production systems in particular, this assumption is unlikely to hold in reality. This paper quantifies spatial spillovers on input‐specific inefficiency using data envelopment analysis and a second‐stage bootstrap truncated regression model. The bootstrap algorithm is extended to allow for the estimation of the parameter of the spatial weight matrix, which captures the proximity between producers. The empirical application concerns Dutch arable farms for which latitudes and longitudes are available. The average inefficiency across years was 3.87% for productive inputs and 2.98% for damage abatement inputs under variable returns to scale. For productive inputs technical inefficiency, statistically significant spillover effects from neighbours’ age and their degree of specialisation depended on the type of the spatial weight matrix used (inverse distance or k‐nearest neighbours). Statistically significant spillover effects of subsidy payments were adverse while statistically significant spillover effects from insurance payments were beneficial. For damage abatement inputs technical inefficiency, statistically significant adverse effects were found for neighbours’ age and subsidy payments and beneficial effects from neighbours’ insurance payments and their degree of specialisation.     

Are small‐scale rice farmers in eastern India really inefficient? Examining the effects of microtopography on technical efficiency estimates

The article analyzes how controlling for differences in land types (defined by position on a low‐scale toposequence) affects estimates of farm technical efficiency for rice farms in eastern India. Contrasting previous research, we find that farms are considerably more technically efficient when efficiency estimates are carried out at the plot level and control for plot characteristics rather than at the farm level without such controls. Estimates show farms cultivating modern varieties are technically efficient and plots planted with traditional varieties on less productive lands (upland and midupland) operate close to the production frontier. Significant technical inefficiency is found on more productive lands (medium and lowland plots) planted with traditional rice varieties. The finding that these smallholder rain‐fed rice farms are efficient cultivators on some plots contrasts with previous findings of farm‐level inefficiency (i.e., rejects overarching explanations linked to farm operator ignorance or lack of motivation) and suggests more complex explanations are required to address the inefficiency that is present.     

Diversification in Indian Agriculture toward High‐Value Crops: The Role of Small Farmers

Diversification by small farmers toward high‐value crops (fruits and vegetables [F & V]) that can raise farm incomes significantly has always been in question because of several reasons such as diseconomies of scale and lack of access to inputs such as capital and information. We present evidence that in India diversification toward high‐value crops exhibits a pro‐smallholder (rather than anti‐smallholder) bias. The smallholders however play a proportionally larger role in vegetables than in fruits cultivation. These patterns are consistent with simple comparative advantage‐based production choices. Even with small landholdings if labor endowments are high, such farmers diversify toward F & V. Though fruits cultivation is also labor intensive relative to cereals, it is less so relative to vegetables. Greater capital intensity implies a comparatively important role of credit in fruits. The results are robust to several tests on specification including those related to self‐selection. Chez les petits exploitants agricoles, la diversification en faveur de cultures à valeur élevée (fruits et légumes) permettant d’accroître considérablement le revenu agricole a toujours été remise en question pour diverses raisons, notamment les déséconomies d’échelle et le manque d’accès aux intrants comme le capital et l’information. Dans le présent article, nous montrons qu’en Inde, la diversification en faveur de cultures à valeur élevée semble plutôt favorable que défavorable aux petits exploitants agricoles. Toutefois, les petits exploitants sont proportionnellement plus présents dans la culture maraîchère que dans la culture fruitière. Ces observations concordent avec les choix d’une production fondée sur les avantages comparatifs. Même dans le cas des petites exploitations, lorsque les besoins de main‐d’?uvre sont élevés, elles se tournent vers les cultures fruitière et maraîchère. Bien que la culture fruitière soit une activitéà forte intensité de main‐d’?uvre comparativement à la culture céréalière, elle l’est moins que la culture maraîchère. L’intensité de capital élevée de la culture fruitière signifie que le crédit joue aussi un rôle important. Les résultats de plusieurs tests de spécification sont robustes, y compris ceux liés à l’auto‐sélection.     

How Might Shadow Price Restrictions Reduce Technical Efficiency? Evidence from a Restricted DEA Analysis of Coffee Farms in Vietnam

We use data from smallholder coffee farms in Vietnam to measure the technical efficiency of coffee producers, and the degree to which potential restrictions on the shadow prices of chemical inputs might reduce overall efficiency among these farmers. Using input‐oriented data envelopment analysis (DEA) we find the use of pesticide and herbicide accounts for a relatively small proportion of overall technical efficiency in the sample. We place restrictions on input shadow prices and show that restricting their importance does not dramatically alter patterns or measures of short‐run efficiency.     

EFFETS DES FACTEURS DE PRODUCTION ET EFFETS RÉGIONAUX SUR LE REVENU AGRICOLE

Plusieurs explications du has niveau des revenus agricoles par tête mettent sur le même plan des variables appartenant à des corps théoriques distincts et dont I'effct s'exerce dans des temps opératoires différents. Le concept d'une function agrégée de production à niveau variable selon les régions permet de synthétiser un certain nombre de variables affectant la productivité du travail agricole et donc la partie du revenu agricole qui est d'origine agricole. Les mouvements le long de la fonction agrégée de production expliquent les différences inter-régionales de productivité imputables aux facteurs de production et aux économies d'échelle tandis que les déplacements de la fonction mesurent les effets régionaux des conditions naturelles et/ou du développement urbain et industriel. Appliquée aux agricultures du Québec et de I'Ontario, I'analyse économétrique dégage le rôle croissant des effets régionaux par rapport à celui des facteurs de production tandis qu'une analyse graphique illustre la relation entre scolarité et revenu. RESOURCE AND AREA EFFECTS ON AGRICULTURAL INCOME: This paper is an attempt to measure, describe and analyze interregional differences in value productivity of labor in Quebec and Ontario agricultures, in 1951 and 1961. Measurement reveals important and persistent differences in the average value productivity of labor between regions. The list of economic and non-economic variables which influence labor productivity and thus agricultural per capita income is a growing one and it Is not always stressed to what theoretical body they belong and within what period of time they operate. In his paper some of the economic variables which have a bearing on agricultural per capita income at a given point of time at the regional level have been synthetized through the concept of an aggregate production function whose level is allowed to shift from region to region. It is then possible to analyze the regional differences in labor productivity in terms of capital and intermediate inputs associated with labor on farms, of scale economies and regional effects. This approach pertains only to the agricultural source of the per capita income of farmers, it does neither explain their decisions with respect to the capital and intermediate inputs used nor the nature of the regional effects; it calls for a second stage of explanation where the adjustment of agriculture to economic growth would enter the picture. Results of fitting Cobb-Douglas functions to county averages per farm observations show that capital and intermediate inputs and scale economies explain most of the regional differences in labour productivity in 1951; in 1961 scale economies and regional effects are more important than capital and intermediate inputs. Regions at the periphery of the group of regions between Quebec and Ottawa are shifting away from the aggregate production function for the two provinces. This movement means that in 1961 comparative (dis)advantages have become more pronounced than in 1951. At the level of personal characteristics of farmers, a graphical analysis shows a relationship between average value productivity of labor at the regional level and the proportion of farmers in each region having more than elementary schooling. Implications for the income and poverty problems are that the capital/labor ratio, the intermediate inputs/labor ratio, scale economies and location are important determinants of agricultural per capita income.     

Environmental Production Factors and Efficiency of Smallholder Agricultural Households: Using Non‐parametric Conditional Frontier Methods

External environmental factors play a significant role in the agricultural production of smallholder farmers. This is especially the case in developing countries where production is less technologically intensive. These factors are mainly exogenous and affect both the farmers’ input choices and the final output levels. However, previous studies of technical efficiency of smallholder agricultural production either ignore these factors or assume separability between environmental factors and input choice, which is often not the case in developing counties. Using data on smallholder farmers in Ethiopia, we relax this separability assumption and investigate the importance of external environmental factors in farmers’ performance and efficiency variation across regions. The empirical analysis is based on a non‐parametric conditional order‐m estimation method that relaxes some of the traditional strong assumptions in efficiency modeling and, more importantly, the separability between environmental factors and the choice of physical inputs. Using data from four major agricultural regions of Ethiopia, we show the extent that environmental factors contribute to the technical efficiency and the significance of environmental factors in farmers’ performance.     

CARBAP and innovation on the plantain banana in Western and Central Africa

Plantain is considered as a major staple food in Central and Western Africa with a production estimated at approximately 8 million tons (Lescot, 2007). But almost all small producers do not have access yet or do not use the innovations from research, and yields are thus very low. CARBAP (African Research Centre on Banana and Plantain) is a novel example of a regional research partnership for plantains and bananas across Western and Central Africa and particularly Cameroon, Democratic Republic of Congo, Côte d'Ivoire, Ghana, Guinea and Nigeria. It links researchers, creates novel platforms, undertakes training and disseminates materials. It encourages mass propagation by farmers—after training, some 10 million new disease-resistant plants were spread to farms over two years.