Are small farms more performant than larger ones in developing countries?

Delvaux, Pedro Andres Garzon; Riesgo, Laura; Paloma, Sergio Gómez y

doi:10.1126/sciadv.abb8235

Cited by 27 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 90 publications

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“…Based on the above data, we use the maxDEA8 Basic software to calculate the production efficiency values of 135 seed-producing corn farmers in Zhangye City. Previous studies have shown that the scale of farmers' planting has a certain impact on production efficiency [52][53][54][55][56]. In order to explore the impact of the corn planting scale of farmers on their agricultural production efficiency, we draw a graph of the relationship between farmer's production efficiency and planting scale.…”

Section: Farmers' Production Efficiency According To the Dea Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ways to Improve the Productivity of Oasis Agriculture: Increasing the Scale of Household Production and Human Capital? A Case Study on Seed Maize Production in Northwest China

et al. 2021

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Oasis agriculture in arid areas faces the constraints of scarce resources and a fragile ecological environment. Improving agricultural production efficiency is the key solution. However, there are few studies analyzing the relationship between farmers’ production efficiency and planting scale from a micro-empirical perspective. Herein, we study the seed-producing corn growers in Zhangye city, and supplement special survey data with national input–output survey data. We use data envelopment analysis to measure agricultural production efficiency, and tobit regression to calculate the marginal effects of factors affecting production efficiency on farms of different scales. The results show that production efficiency is greater for large-scale farmers than for small-scale farmers. Duration of technical training, education time of laborers, planting income, and productive expenditure are significantly positively correlated with production efficiency. Average age of farmers and the amount of pesticide and fertilizer use are significantly negatively correlated with production efficiency. Off-farm activities improve the production efficiency of small-scale farmers but inhibit it for medium- and large-scale farmers. Differences exist in marginal impacts for different scales of farmland. We conclude that expanding the scale of family farms and optimizing human capital are effective for improving agricultural production efficiency in arid oasis areas.

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Section: Farmers' Production Efficiency According To the Dea Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ways to Improve the Productivity of Oasis Agriculture: Increasing the Scale of Household Production and Human Capital? A Case Study on Seed Maize Production in Northwest China

et al. 2021

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“…Some studies used renting-in land and double cropping as instruments to estimate the farm size and productivity relationship (Lamb, 2003). However, several studies do not use an instrumental strategy despite acknowledging the presence of endogeneity (see for example, (Omotilewa et al, 2021;Garzón Delvaux et al, 2020). We too rely on the OLS results due to lack of a relevant exogenous instrument.…”

Section: Potential Endogeneitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Farm Size and Productivity: The Role of Family Labor

Ayaz¹,

Mughal²

2024

Economic Development and Cultural Change

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In this study, we draw a theoretical model to demonstrate that small farms achieve lower total factor productivity (TFP) compared to large farms, even though their yield may be higher. We argue that taking into account family labor modifies the farm size-productivity relationship. We test our hypotheses on geocoded data from 5,645 agriculture farms in Pakistan using Pakistan household integrated economic survey 2018-19 and labor force survey 2018 combined with remote sensing data to account for farm-specific topographic features.We base our analysis on OLS and stochastic frontier analysis. We find that family labor is the key to understanding the nature and strength of the farm size -productivity relationship. Farm size's association, both with yield and TFP, turns positive when we measure family labor in terms of market wage rate rather than marginal product. Farm yield decreases by -0.07% with a one percent increase in farm size but gets insignificant or increases by 0.034% when family labor cost is measured at market wages rather than the marginal product. We find that higher family labor intensity, labor market distortion due to the notion of family dishonor, and suboptimal crop selection by small farms play a crucial role in this context.

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“…The choice of the output variables (net returns, gross revenue, yield, total factor productivity, etc.) is used in the analysis (Garzon Delvaux et al, 2020). For instance, Rada and Fuglie (2019) have found, based on a set of case studies, that the size-productivity relationship evolves with the level of economic development of the country.…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Insights into land size and productivity in Ethiopia: What do data and heterogenous analysis reveal?

Mishra

Louhichi

Giampiero

et al. 2023

Front. Sustain. Food Syst.

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This study investigates whether the historical inverse relationship (IR) between land (farm and plot) size and productivity holds for Ethiopia farms. The study uses plot-level and household-level data from the three waves of the Ethiopia Socioeconomic Survey. The main finding, which confirms previous studies, is that the plot-size IR holds when productivity measurement is based on self-reported yields. However, the effects were reversed when we used crop-cut yields. Including labor inputs significantly reduces the magnitude of the coefficients on land size but not the sign. Finally, the quantile regression reveals interesting findings. These are: (1) a strong positive effect of farm (and plot) size on productivity; (2) the magnitude of the effect decreases monotonically with quantile; (3) farm size displays a robust negative impact on gross revenue and the magnitude of the effect increases (in absolute terms) monotonically with quantiles; (4) the effect of farm (and plot) size on productivity decreases in magnitude when we control for labor input; (5) the IR between farm (and plot) size and total and family labor was negative and significant and the effect increases (in absolute terms) monotonically with quantiles.

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Are small farms more performant than larger ones in developing countries?

Cited by 27 publications

References 90 publications

Ways to Improve the Productivity of Oasis Agriculture: Increasing the Scale of Household Production and Human Capital? A Case Study on Seed Maize Production in Northwest China

Ways to Improve the Productivity of Oasis Agriculture: Increasing the Scale of Household Production and Human Capital? A Case Study on Seed Maize Production in Northwest China

Farm Size and Productivity: The Role of Family Labor

Insights into land size and productivity in Ethiopia: What do data and heterogenous analysis reveal?

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