Identifying the Determinants of Land Use under Beans in Santander, Colombia

We identified the socioeconomic factors that help determine the percentage of land use under common beans (Phaseoulus Vulgaris) utilising a dataset collected by CIAT in Santander, Colombia, composed of 566 common bean growers. As some of the regressors employed were highly correlated among themselves, we performed a latent class analysis for six groups of thematic variables: other crops grown, climatic change perceived, capital goods owned, farming practices known, training received, and biotic stressors controlled. Additionally, as the prices of beans resulted to be endogenous to the percentage of land use under beans, we run an IV regression to control for this endogeneity problem, using socioeconomic factors as instruments to control for farmers’ bargaining power to set prices. Finally, we run fractional regression models to identify the determinants of land use under beans. Four factors arose as important determinants of this decision within this farming community: the price of beans, the total area of the farm, the practice of intercropping, and climate change perception. Farmers with larger areas dedicated less land to beans, those who intercropped reduced the area under beans, small landowners were the only ones who specialized in the cultivation of beans, and farmers affected by droughts dedicated more land area to growing beans, indicating that they relied on bean production to stabilize their income in the presence of climatic shocks.