Agricultural trade and poverty in Chile: a spatial analysis of product tradability

Many questions have arisen about the relationship between international agricultural trade and poverty in developing countries. This article explores these questions by analyzing local agricultural tradability indices, which measure the degree to which commodities produced in a particular region are traded internationally. Data are examined for Chile, a middle‐income country with a history of international agricultural trade over the last decades. Empirical results indicate that a higher agricultural tradability index is associated with lower poverty rates across Chilean comunas.     

Implications of higher global food prices for poverty in low‐income countries1

In many poor countries, the recent increases in prices of staple foods have raised the real incomes of those selling food, many of whom are relatively poor, while hurting net food consumers, many of whom are also relatively poor. The impacts on poverty will certainly be very diverse, but the average impact on poverty depends upon the balance between these two effects, and can only be determined by looking at real‐world data. Results using household data for 10 observations on nine low‐income countries show that the short‐run impacts of higher staple food prices on poverty differ considerably by commodity and by country, but that poverty increases are much more frequent, and larger, than poverty reductions. The recent large increases in food prices appear likely to raise overall poverty in low‐income countries substantially.     

Agricultural water management and poverty in Ethiopia

The main focus of this article is to explore whether access to selected agricultural water management (AWM) technologies has led to significant reduction in poverty and, if they did so, to identify which technologies had higher impacts. In measuring impact we estimated the average treatment effect for the treated on crop income and measured the differences in consumption expenditures per adult equivalent of those with access and without access using matched data. The estimated average treatment effect was significant and amounted to USD 82 per season. Moreover, there was 24 less poverty incidence among users of AWM technologies compared to nonusers. All technologies were found to have significant poverty reducing impacts with micro dams, deep wells, river diversions, and ponds leading to 37%, 26%, 11%, and 9% reduction in poverty incidence compared to rainfed system. Finally, our study identified the most important correlates of poverty on the basis this we made the policy recommendations to build assets (AWM technologies, livestock, etc); to enhance human resource development and improve the functioning of labor markets for enhanced impact of AWM technologies on poverty.     

Assessing the impact of NERICA on income and poverty in central and western Uganda

Persistent food shortage and poverty in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) are major development issues. New Rice for Africa (NERICA) was developed to boost crop yield and income of rural households in SSA. Although its high-yielding traits have become fairly well known, there is no empirical analysis of its impact on income and poverty. By taking the case of Uganda where a NERICA promoting program was initiated as one of the major poverty eradication measures, this study attempts to compare actual income with the hypothetical income without NERICA. We found that introduction of NERICA decreases poverty to a significant extent without deteriorating income distribution.     

Productivity growth and inter-sector spill-over in Dutch horticulture, 1976–1995

This article calculates nonparametric measures of total factor productivity growth on Dutch horticultural firms in the period 1976–1995. Individual components of total factor productivity growth, i.e., efficiency change and technical change are regressed on socioeconomic factors reflecting the effects of the world oil crises, household and demographic characteristics, location, and investment in physical capital. Also, the article investigates the presence of inter‐sector spill‐overs between groups of firms with different specializations in Dutch horticulture.     

Land inequality and economic growth: a dynamic panel data approach

The growing body of literature devoted to studying the impact of inequality on economic growth has centered its attention on the income distribution effect, even though the theoretical relationships are more related to assets distribution. While some recent studies have tried to overcome this limitation by introducing asset indicators, they meet new constraints when dealing only with time-invariant measurements for this explanatory variable. This article provides a theoretical discussion and some novel empirical tests to better understand the relationships between assets distribution and economic growth. We assembled a new panel database that includes observations for more than 30 countries over the last three decades. The data include a time-varying variable for changes in the Land Gini index over this period that enables us to overcome the limitations of previous studies. A system general method of moments (GMM) estimator is used to generate truly unbiased and consistent estimates for the parameters of interest. We explore some of the likely channels through which asset distribution and economic growth may be linked, paying particular attention to the role of secure property rights and the relations between land ownership and education. We find robust and significant negative signs for land inequality in the growth regressions, indicating that changes in asset distribution are an important factor for economic development.     

The increasing importance of nonfarm income and the changing use of labor and capital in rice farming: the case of Central Luzon, 1979–2003

There have been sharp increases in nonfarm income among farm households in Central Luzon for the last few decades. This study attempts to identify the effects of the increasing nonfarm income on the use of tractors and threshers and on the employment of hired labor as a substitute for family labor. We found that while the increased nonfarm income positively affects the ownership of tractors, it has no significant impact on the use of agricultural machines due presumably to the development of efficient machine rental markets. We also found that the increased nonfarm income leads to the increased use of hired labor, thereby releasing family labor to nonfarm jobs.     

Incentives to managers or participation of farmers in China's irrigation systems: which matters most for water savings,farmer income,and poverty?

The overall goal of our article is to better understand which matters for water savings, farmer income and poverty in China's irrigation systems: incentives to managers or participation of farmers. To pursue this goal, the article has three objectives. First, we track the evolution of water management reform, examining the practice of providing incentives to managers, and increasing the participation of farmers. Second, we identify the impact of water management reform on crop water use. Specifically, we want to measure whether or not incentives to managers and farmer participation in water management institutions affect the performance of the irrigation system. Because we also are interested in the potential results of water management reform, the article explores how changes in incentives and farmer participation affect farmer income and poverty. Based on a random sample of 51 villages and 189 farmers in four large irrigation districts in Ningxia and Henan provinces, both in China's Yellow River Basin, our results show that the two major forms of water management reform, water users' associations (WUAs) and contracting, have begun to systematically replace traditional forms of collective management. Our analysis demonstrates, however, that it is not the nominal implementation of the reform that matters, but rather it is the creation of new management institutions that offer water managers monetary incentives that lead to water savings. In contrast to the original design of China's reform policies, participation of farmers has not played a role in saving water. Importantly, given China's concerns about national food production and poverty alleviation, the reductions in water, at least in our sample sites, do not lead to reductions in income and do not increase the incidence of poverty.     

The economic and poverty impacts of maize research in West and Central Africa

This article assembles the results of three multicountry surveys on variety performance and adoption patterns to measure the impacts of maize research in West and Central Africa from 1981 to 2005, and uses cost data since 1971 to compute social rates of return on public investments in maize research in the region. Adoption of modern varieties increased from less than 5% of the maize area in the 1970s to about 60% in 2005, yielding an aggregate rate of return on research and development (R&D) investment of 43%. The estimated number of people moved out of poverty through adoption of new maize varieties rose gradually in the 1980s to more than one million people per year since the mid 1990s. Over half of these impacts can be attributed to international maize research at IITA and CIMMYT. The article concludes with a discussion of strategic options to enhance the impacts of maize research in the region.     

The long-term impacts of orphanhood on education attainment and land inheritance among adults in rural Kenya

Although the long-term economic impacts of the AIDS epidemic on orphans have been major concerns, few studies have investigated the impacts of orphan status into adulthood. Therefore, this article examines the education attainment and land inheritance of former orphans, who have lost at least one parent before reaching the age of 15 years, by using household surveys in Kenya. We find about a one-year lower educational attainment among former maternal orphans compared with former nonorphans among adults who started schooling before the Free Primary Education program introduced in 1974 but not among adults who started schooling after 1974. On inherited land, we find no significant difference between households headed by former orphans and nonorphans, after controlling for land owned by parents, numbers of brothers and sisters, and birth order among brothers.     

Cash crop choice and income dynamics in rural areas: evidence for post‐crisis Indonesia

In this article we investigate the factors affecting levels and growth of incomes in rural Indonesia following the crisis of 1997–1998. In particular, we investigate the relative roles of nonfarm incomes and productivity improvements achieved via changes in crops versus improvements on the same crops on income dynamics. Framing the article in the context of an optimal labor allocation model, relying on unique household panel data from Central Sulawesi, and using advanced panel econometric methods, we find that local innovations related to the adoption and intensification of new cash crop varieties, more specifically the shift from coffee to cocoa production, can explain a substantial part of the observed post‐crisis developments. Causal estimates of the effect of growing cocoa suggest that households were on average able to achieve about 14% higher income levels during the post‐crisis period compared to the planting of other crops, most notably coffee. Also, our results demonstrate the importance of engagement in nonfarm activities for household income growth. Comparative analyses using a nationally representative survey suggest that similar processes are at play in other parts of Indonesia.     

Agricultural exports and economic growth in less developed countries

This article examines the contribution of agricultural exports to economic growth in less developed countries (LDCs). A sources‐of‐growth equation is developed from a dual economy model where agricultural and nonagricultural sectors are both divided into export and nonexport subsectors. This is then estimated using panel data for 62 LDCs for 1974–1995. Results provide evidence that there are significant structural differences in economic growth between low, lower‐middle, and upper‐income LDCs. Investment in the agricultural export subsector has a statistically identical impact on economic growth as investment in the nonagricultural export subsector. The marginal productivities in nonexport subsectors are over 30% lower than those in respective export subsectors. From a policy perspective, the results suggest that export‐promotion policies should be balanced.     

Industrial mining land use and poverty in regions of Burkina Faso

Industrial mining generally develops in rural areas where agriculture is the main subsistence activity of the population. However, there seems to be an incompatible coexistence between agricultural and mining activities, as both require a large amount of land. Given the extensive agricultural system in Burkina Faso and the expansion of mining since 2007, this study analyzed the effect of industrial mining land use on poverty in the 13 regions of Burkina Faso. The study examined the effect of mining land use intensity on cereal production/yield before exploring its impact on poverty by using several econometric methods and various data from the National Statistics Institute. The results indicate that mining land use intensity had no direct effect on poverty; instead, the effect is indirect. Indeed, mining land use intensity negatively affects cereal yield, and that reinforces the incidence of poverty in mining regions. Moreover, the results show that cereal production increases with cropped land. As cereal yield decreases with industrial mining land use intensity, this suggests that the expansion of mining would contribute to the jeopardizing of the food supply as well as the exacerbation of poverty in mining regions. Therefore, policies are needed to encourage the sustainable management of land and mining revenue redistribution in the mining regions of Burkina Faso.     

Deprived land-use intensification in shifting cultivation: the population pressure hypothesis revisited

This article provides a theoretical framework, based on optimal control theory, to analyze farm households' land‐use intensification decisions in forest‐based shifting cultivation (slash‐and‐burn) agroecosystems. The main results from the analysis generally coincide with the “Population Pressure Hypothesis” (PPH) as an important driver of soil degradation due to the so‐called “fallow crisis” or “deprived land‐use intensification” in shifting cultivation. However, the model also shows, from a supply perspective, that such a vicious circle of lower yields and greater forest land clearing may be avoided when the production elasticity of on‐farm labor outweighs the elasticity of substitution between farm labor and soil fertility. Furthermore, using data from shifting cultivating households from Yucatán, Mexico, we calibrate the effect of changes in population density. The numerical analysis suggests that by contrast to better‐off households, when population density increases, poorer shifting cultivating households' optimal labor allocation strategy is to further extensify land use by clearing more forest in the village common property land, or ejido land.     

Agricultural commercialisation,asset growth and poverty in rural Vietnam

Poverty remains a substantial threat in rural areas of many developing countries, and solving this problem requires an in-depth understanding of the income generating capacity that determines poverty. This paper examines the impact of agricultural commercialisation on the capability of rural households to accumulate and productively use assets and reduce structural and multidimensional poverty. A longitudinal dataset of around 2000 households with a total of 9781 observations from five rural surveys undertaken in the period 2008–2017 in Vietnam is used. Results from a fixed effects regression with an instrumental variable and a control function approach show that agricultural commercialisation has a positive effect on the accumulation of assets and reduces multidimensional and structural poverty over time. However, the effect is not homogeneous and is larger for households that are not mainly engaged in rice commercialisation. This suggests that commercialisation can be a path out of poverty, especially if policy makers move towards utilising other crops instead of rice.     

Global market shocks and poverty in Vietnam: the case of rice

World food prices have experienced dramatic increases in recent years. These “shocks” affect food importers and exporters alike. Vietnam is a major exporter of rice, and rice is also a key item in domestic production, employment, and consumption. Accordingly, rice price shocks from the world market have general equilibrium impacts and as such, their implications for household welfare are not known ex ante. In this article, we present a framework for understanding the direct and indirect welfare effects of a global market shock of this kind. We quantify transmission of the shock from global indicator prices to domestic markets. Then we use an applied general equilibrium model to simulate the economic effects of the price changes. A recursive mapping to a nationally representative household living standards survey permits us to identify in detail the ceteris paribus effects of the shock on household incomes and welfare. In this analysis, interregional and intersectoral labor market adjustments emerge as key channels transmitting the effects of global price shocks across sectors and among households.