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Is there a farm-size productivity relationship in African agriculture ? evidence from Rwanda

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  • Ali, Daniel Ayalew
  • Deininger, Klaus

Abstract

Whether the negative relationship between farm size and productivity that is confirmed in a large global literature holds in Africa is of considerable policy relevance. This paper revisits this issue and examines potential causes of the inverse productivity relationship in Rwanda, where policy makers consider land fragmentation and small farm sizes to be key bottlenecks for the growth of the agricultural sector. Nationwide plot-level data from Rwanda point toward a constant returns to scale crop production function and a strong negative relationship between farm size and output per hectare as well as intensity of labor use that is robust across specifications. The inverse relationship continues to hold if profits with family labor valued at shadow wages are used, but disappears if family labor is rather valued at village-level market wage rates. These findings imply that, in Rwanda, labor market imperfections, rather than other unobserved factors, seem to be a key reason for the inverse farm-size productivity relationship.

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  • Ali, Daniel Ayalew & Deininger, Klaus, 2014. "Is there a farm-size productivity relationship in African agriculture ? evidence from Rwanda," Policy Research Working Paper Series 6770, The World Bank.
    • Handle: RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:6770
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    2. Silvia Silvestri & Martin Macharia & Bellancile Uzayisenga, 2019. "Analysing the potential of plant clinics to boost crop protection in Rwanda through adoption of IPM: the case of maize and maize stem borers," Food Security: The Science, Sociology and Economics of Food Production and Access to Food, Springer;The International Society for Plant Pathology, vol. 11(2), pages 301-315, April.
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    13. Thomas Markussen & Finn Tarp & Do Huy Thiep & Nguyen Do Anh Tuan, 2016. "Inter- and intra-farm land fragmentation in Vietnam," WIDER Working Paper Series 011, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    14. Desiere, Sam & D'Haese, Marijke, 2015. "Boserup versus Malthis: does population pressure drive agricultural intensification? Evidence from Burundi," 2015 Conference, August 9-14, 2015, Milan, Italy 211571, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    15. Pierre Damien Ntihinyurwa & Walter Timo de Vries, 2021. "Farmland Fragmentation, Farmland Consolidation and Food Security: Relationships, Research Lapses and Future Perspectives," Land, MDPI, vol. 10(2), pages 1-39, January.
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