Rural Household Access to Assets and Agrarian Institutions: A Cross Country Comparison

Abstract

Agriculture is at the core of the livelihoods of a large share of rural households throughout the developing world. Agricultural growth is a major engine for overall economic growth and possibly the single most important pathway out of poverty in the rural space. This paper characterizes household access to assets and agrarian institutions of households engaged in agricultural activities in a sample of developing countries. The evidence presented in the paper draws from 15 nationally representative household surveys from four regions of the developing world. We find that the access of rural households to a range of agricultural-specific assets (including land and livestock) and institutions is in general low, though highly heterogeneous across countries, and by categories of households within countries. A large share of rural agricultural households do not use or have access to basic productive inputs, agricultural support services or output markets, and in general it is the landless and the smallest landowners who suffer significantly more from this lack of access. We relate this to the households' ability to engage successfully in commercial farming and find consistent supporting evidence for the hypothesis that this lack of access is significantly constraining their potential to engage successfully in agriculture.

Pathways into and out of Poverty: A Study of Rural Household Wealth Dynamics in Kenya

“…Proximity to markets and infrastructure influences households' asset holding. Access to infrastructure enhances households' access to input and product markets and may also influence the type of agricultural activity in which households engage (Zezza et al 2007). Greater access to infrastructure implies reduced time and distance to urban centers.…”

Rural livestock asset portfolio in northern Ethiopia: a microeconomic analysis of choice and accumulation

“…Despite the importance of livestock, issues of livestock type choice and access have not been quite as extensively researched as issues related to land and human capital, and there is a tendency to consider them important solely for particular population subgroups (herders and pastoralists), while focusing most of the analysis of agricultural livelihoods on crop activities (Zezza et al 2007). A wide range of studies about livestock ranging from livestock marketing (Barrett et al 2006;Baldwin et al 2008;Pavanello 2010) to risk management, constraints to access and stocking (De Vries et al 2006;Davies and Bennet 2007;Mahmoud 2008) have been made mainly in pastoralist areas.…”

Patterns of Rural Development: A Cross‐Country Comparison using Microeconomic Data

“…Poor households in rural areas across the globe often lack a similar mix of assets. In an analysis of the economic status of rural households, Zezza et al (2007) show that in rural areas most small land and livestock holders lack access to key assets, inputs, markets and basic services -all instruments necessary for rural agrarian households to improve their well-being through agricultural activities. Further, the analysis by Zezza et al (2007) also indicates that the rural poor tend to be less endowed with working age individuals, suggesting that fewer individuals must support the basic needs of the household.…”

“…In an analysis of the economic status of rural households, Zezza et al (2007) show that in rural areas most small land and livestock holders lack access to key assets, inputs, markets and basic services -all instruments necessary for rural agrarian households to improve their well-being through agricultural activities. Further, the analysis by Zezza et al (2007) also indicates that the rural poor tend to be less endowed with working age individuals, suggesting that fewer individuals must support the basic needs of the household. Finally, they argue that unequally distributed and low levels of education, where the majority of heads of rural households are found to have less than a primary school education, further disadvantage poorer rural household.…”

“…Poor households in rural areas across the globe often lack a similar mix of assets. In an analysis of the economic status of rural households, Zezza et al. (2007) show that in rural areas most small land and livestock holders lack access to key assets, inputs, markets and basic services – all instruments necessary for rural agrarian households to improve their well‐being through agricultural activities.…”