Industry and migration of farm workers

Globalization has changed economic realities. First, the competences of multinational enterprises (MNEs) are becoming increasingly mobile and knowledge-intensive. MNEs thus give more attention to the availability and quality of the created assets of alternative locations. Second, among developing countries there are now considerable differences between the catching-up countries (e.g. newly industrialized countries) and falling behind , less developed countries. These developments have helped change the opportunity sets of both MNEs and host countries. Foreign direct investment (FDI)-based development strategies are now commonplace among less developed countries, but there is also increased competition for the right kinds of investment. In general, the balance in bargaining power has shifted in favour of the MNE, and less developed countries increasingly need to provide unique, non-replicable created assets to maintain a successful FDI-assisted development strategy.     

Canadian farm operator mobility analysis, 1961-71

Results of a pooled time series and cross-section analysis of Canadian farm operator mobility for the 1961-71 period indicate the importance of analyzing farm operator mobility by individual gross receipts classes. Economic variables explain a substantial proportion of the 1961-71 percentage decline in the number of Canadian farm operators. Use of the equations in projections for 1976 indicate the need for refinement in the procedures to adjust for the effects of the substantial product and input price changes which occurred in the 1971-76 period.
Les resultats d'une analyse de series chronologiques et de coupes transversales combinks sur lamobilite des producteurs agricoles au Canada durant la periode de 1961 a 1971 indiquent I'importance d'analyser cette mobilitt par classe de revenu brut. Les variables konomiques expliquent la majeure partie du declin, en pourcentage, du nombre de producteurs agricoles au Canada de 1961. 1971. En utilisant les equations pour prtdire les donntees pour 1976, on se rend compte du bessoin d'ameliorer la procedure afin de corriger les effets resultant de variations importantes des prk des intrants et des produits agricoles qui se sont manifest& entre 1971 et 1976.     

Amplifying invisibility: COVID-19 and Zimbabwean migrant farm workers in South Africa

How does the COVID-19 pandemic impact migrant worker visibility? This paper examines how the pandemic underscores the invisibility of Zimbabwean migrant farm workers employed at ZZ2, one of the largest commercial farms in South Africa. I argue that Zimbabweans are made invisible in three ways. First, employer and state restrictions on mobility, alongside rising xenophobia in South Africa, leave migrant workers hyper-visible to ZZ2 management, yet invisible to most people outside the farm. Second, ZZ2 avoids discussion of its migrant workforce in public forums, even as it faces increased scrutiny for its treatment of its workers during the pandemic. Third, the most prominent critic of ZZ2—the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF)—grants migrant workers only a partial visibility as undifferentiated foreigners with no voice, a construction that ultimately maintains their invisibility at the company. Taken together, these interlocking forms of invisibilization diminish the structural and associational power of workers.     

Water access,farm productivity,and farm household income: Sri Lanka's Kirindi Oya irrigation system

Income differences attributed to differential access to water in irrigation systems are common. Prior studies of farm‐level water use in developing areas have typically been limited to using number of irrigations as a proxy for water use. We develop a volumetric measure in Sri Lanka's Kirindi Oya Irrigation System through recent farmer recall and use it in production function estimation and welfare analysis. Findings indicate substantial differences in water use by farms across seasons and across subareas of the irrigation district. Alternative plans for allocating additional water among seasons and subareas to elevate net rice revenues are examined. The recommended plan predicts higher net returns from rice and greater equality in the distribution of household income than would be generated if the additional water were allocated based on the current allocation criteria. Concurrent application of fertilizer at recommended levels would further increase net revenues and reduce income inequality.     

Farm machinery use,off‐farm employment and farm performance in China

We analyse the joint impacts of farm machinery use and off‐farm employment on maize yields and agrochemical expenses from a household survey of 493 farmers in China. Our findings are obtained from an innovative two‐stage econometric procedure that combines a bivariate ordered probit model with an endogeneity‐corrected ordinary least square regression model. The results show that farmers are jointly making decisions to use farm machines and to work off the farm and that these two household activities affect maize yields and agrochemical expenses in different ways. We show that farm machinery use significantly increases both maize yields and agrochemical expenses, while off‐farm employment significantly decreases agrochemical expenses. Our findings highlight the importance of additional machinery use in increasing farm production; the need to account for possible endogeneity in estimation; and the statistical significance of key household characteristics (gender, education, and household size) on overall farm production.     

Transaction costs, strategic interaction, and farm restructuring

This article offers a transaction cost explanation for the different paths of organizational adjustment in the case of the former state and collective farms in Czech Republic after 1989. The focus is the strategic interaction among the stakeholders in the agricultural organization undergoing restructuring. In the presence of a neutral institutional environment, the number of players involved in the intraorganizational process, their ability to make collective decisions, and their perceived payoffs in alternative farming structures determine the restructuring outcome. These factors influence the choice between maintaining the inherited deployment of assets and the creation of a deeply restructured organization. Empirical results based on a farm‐level data set support this basic idea.     

Farm work, off-farm work, and hired farm labour: estimating a discrete-choice model of French farm couples' labour decisions

We model jointly several types of discrete-choice labour decisionsof farm couples: farm work, off-farm work and hired farm labour.Rather than estimating a set of reduced-form participation equationsthat is subject to an internal inconsistency problem, we estimatea 16-choice multinomial model. We find that farm labour of operatorsand of spouses are substitutes. Hired farm labour increaseswith the farmer's qualifications, perhaps substituting for thecouple's labour inputs. Other adults in the household substitutefor the farm labour input of the farm couple and hired workers.We find that the organisation of work by French farm householdshas changed over time, in the direction of a more equal sharingof tasks and responsibilities between members of the farm family.     

The impact of farm credit in Pakistan

Both informal and formal loans matter in agriculture. However, formal lenders provide many more production loans than informal lenders, often at a cost (mostly loan default cost) higher than what they can recover. For example, the Agricultural Development Bank of Pakistan (ADBP), providing about 90% of formal loans in rural areas, incurs high loan default costs. Yet, like other governments, the Government of Pakistan supports the formal scheme on the grounds that lending to agriculture is a high risk activity because of covariate risk. Hence, such policies are often based on a market failure argument. As farm credit schemes are subsidised, policy makers must know if these schemes are worth supporting. Using a recent large household survey data from rural Pakistan (Rural Financial Market Studies or RFMS), we have attempted to estimate the effectiveness of the ADBP as a credit delivery institution. A two‐stage method that takes the endogeneity of borrowing into account is used to estimate credit impact. Results reveal that ADBP contributes to household welfare and that its impact is higher for smallholders than for large holders. Nevertheless, large holders receive the bulk of ADBP finance. The ADBP is, thus, not a cost‐effective institution in delivering rural finance. Its cost‐effectiveness can be improved by reducing its loan default cost and partially by targeting smallholders in agriculture where credit yields better results.     

Early adoption,experience, and farm performance of GM corn seeds

The current article explores the characteristics that distinguish early from late adopters of GM corn and measures the productivity impacts of early adoption, for a sample of farmers in Minnesota and Wisconsin. The results of the adoption analysis confirm that size, education as well as specialization are positively correlated with early adoption. In addition, these results also show that farms that are mostly worked by family labor but hire some off‐farm labor are more likely to adopt GM seeds earlier in the diffusion process. The productivity analysis demonstrates the superiority of stacked varieties. At the same time, we find no evidence of a direct impact of experience on yields. Given the previously documented impact of early adoption on the use of stacked varieties, we conclude that experience plays a role through the adoption of these new technologies but does not play a role in allowing the producer to use the technology more efficiently, once it has been adopted.     

The firm size,farm size,and transaction costs: the case of hazelnut farms in Turkey

This study analyzes the effects of transaction costs on the size of hazelnut farms in Turkey. The study finds that higher land slope and higher variance of rain, as transaction‐cost‐increasing natural effects, lead to smaller hazelnut land holdings. High slope and weather variation can increase the costs of monitoring the laborers, make moving inputs or output up and down harder, limit the use of machinery, and reduce contractual performance of labor contracts. For farm production functions, land is a complex input with measurable interactions with nature. Contrary to common production theory approaches that take natural properties of land as given, the study develops a production function that incorporates natural properties, such as, slope and rain variance. The study utilizes two separate data sets for the estimations. The first data set explores the characteristics of hazelnut farmers, while the second one analyzes the regional characteristics of hazelnut farms.     

Rural non‐farm diversification,agricultural feminisation and women's autonomy in the farm: evidence from India

This study contributes to the literature on the interlinkage between household non‐farm diversification (HND), agricultural feminisation and female autonomy in farming. The study uses unit‐level data from the Indian Human Development Survey for the years 2004 ‐ 2005 and 2011 ‐ 2012. The paper employs instrumental variable regression methods to study such interlinkages. The results show HND to be a significant factor contributing to the feminisation of agriculture. The study finds some evidence that the phenomenon is distress driven. Further, greater participation of women in agriculture, as well as women's access to land rights, significantly contributes to female autonomy in farm decision‐making. The results are robust to the use of alternative indicators of agricultural feminisation.     

The economics of coupled farm subsidies under costly and imperfect enforcement

This study relaxes the assumption of perfect and costless policy enforcement found in traditional agricultural policy analysis and introduces enforcement costs and cheating into the economic analysis of output subsidies. Policy design and implementation is modeled in this paper as a sequential game between the regulator who decides on the level of intervention, an enforcement agency that determines the level of policy enforcement, and the farmer who makes the production and cheating decisions. Analytical results show that farmer compliance is not the natural outcome of self‐interest and complete deterrence of cheating is not economically efficient. The analysis also shows that enforcement costs and cheating change the welfare effects of output subsidies, the efficiency of the policy instrument in redistributing income, the level of government intervention that transfers a given surplus to agricultural producers, the socially optimal income redistribution, and the social welfare from intervention.     

Agrobiodiversity,farm profits and land fragmentation: Evidence from Bulgaria

This paper presents an empirical analysis of the role of land fragmentation, crop biodiversity and their interplay with farm profitability. Original primary data are drawn from a survey conducted in the Plodiv region of Bulgaria. The econometric results stress the ambiguous role of land fragmentation on farm profitability. On one hand, land fragmentation reduces farm profitability. On the other hand, land fragmentation fosters crop diversification. We also find that crop biodiversity plays a beneficial role in farm profitability. Policies that aim to increase land consolidation and reduce fragmentation may overlook the positive link between diversity and plot heterogeneity. Policies that encourage land consolidation should, therefore, consider the crucial role that this has on other variables such as farm biodiversity.     

Mobile money,agricultural marketing,and off‐farm income in Uganda

Mobile money (MM) services can contribute to welfare gains in smallholder farm households. Previous research showed that one important pathway for these MM‐related welfare gains is through higher remittances received from relatives and friends. Here, the role of other impact pathways is examined, especially focusing on agricultural marketing and off‐farm economic activities. The analysis builds on panel data from smallholder coffee farmers in Uganda. Regression models show that the adoption of MM technology has contributed to higher household incomes and consumption levels. Off‐farm income gains are identified to be an important pathway, also beyond remittances. Typical off‐farm income sources are small businesses in trade, transport, and handicrafts, which benefit from novel savings and money transfer opportunities through MM. In terms of agricultural marketing, MM users sell a larger proportion of their coffee as shelled beans to buyers in high‐value markets, instead of selling to local traders immediately after harvest. MM services help to reduce cash constraints and facilitate transactions with buyers from outside local regions. In conclusion, MM can contribute to rural development through various important pathways. Analysis of adoption patterns suggests that MM services are socially inclusive.     

Economic efficiency in farm households: trends, explanatory factors, and estimation methods

Factors explaining differences in economic efficiency between farms are of major interest to owners, managers, and other stakeholders as they strive to improve earnings and improve the chances of firm survival. This study is undertaken to improve our understanding of interfarm differences in, and opportunities to improve, farm household efficiency in utilizing their land, labor, and capital resources to achieve household objectives. The technical, allocative, and scale efficiencies of farm households are estimated using a nonparametric, output-based data envelopment analysis (DEA) of a panel data set from 1993 to 2006. Single and double bootstrapping procedures are used to estimate technical efficiency. Initial technical efficiency assuming variable returns to scale (TEV) is estimated to be 0.83. Using single bootstrapping, the average bias-corrected TEV estimate is 0.70; using double bootstrapping, the TEV estimate is 0.72. Allocative efficiency is estimated to be 0.81. Scale efficiency is estimated to be 0.93. The only factor that is consistently associated with higher technical efficiency across analysis methods and years is larger farm size (as measured by the log of farm income). The significance of other factors changes with analysis methods.