Balancing the trade-offs between land productivity, labor productivity and labor intensity.

Abstract

Agricultural intensification, through increased yields, and raising incomes, through enhanced labor productivity, are two dimensions prioritized for achieving sustainable agricultural development. Prioritizing these two outcomes leaves a third element of a trade-off space, labor intensity, as a hidden adjustment variable. In contexts where agriculture is the main source of livelihood for the majority of the population and when the prospects of labor absorption in the nonfarm sector are scarce, the density of agricultural employment offers a means to lift the population out of poverty, especially of those farm workers who are landless, unemployed or underemployed. In this article, we revise the classical relationships between land and labor productivity and labor intensity with farm size, using a standardized data set on 32 countries. We show that for all countries, labor productivity increases with farm size, while both land productivity and labor intensity decrease with farm size, with all these relationships being nonlinear. Technical efficiency, on the other hand, increases with farm size, with few exceptions. We further systematize the evidence on how, beyond the farm level, local contextual factors can be pivotal in choosing how to prioritize the different dimensions of the trade-off space. Our findings contribute to the pressing debates on the fate of small-scale farmers by showing the complexities of the trade-offs between land and labor productivity, and labor intensity, and call for contextualized decisions.