IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ags/iaaeo7/198196.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Does Education Increase Agricultural Productivity in Africa?

Author

Listed:
  • Pinckney, Thomas C.

Abstract

Past published studies establishing a significant, positive link between education and agricultural productivity have used Asian data almost exclusively. With one exception, these studies have not checked to see if the positive impact of education comes about only by screening for ability. Using household level data from coffee regions of Kenya and Tanzania, this study finds that households in which the agricultural decision-maker is numerate and literate produce 30 percent more agricultural output, holding other variables constant. This estimate of the impact of education is markedly higher than those made using years of schooling as an independent variable. Increasing cognitive skills beyond basic numeracy and literacy has no additional impact on production. Evidence from Kenya (but not from Tanzania) suggests that reasoning ability and the presence of at least one educated person in the household also increase productivity substantially.

Suggested Citation

  • Pinckney, Thomas C., 1997. "Does Education Increase Agricultural Productivity in Africa?," 1997 Occasional Paper Series No. 7 198196, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    • Handle: RePEc:ags:iaaeo7:198196
    DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.198196
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/198196/files/agecon-occpapers-1997-036_1_.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.22004/ag.econ.198196?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Moock, Peter R, 1981. "Education and Technical Efficiency in Small-Farm Production," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 29(4), pages 723-739, July.
    2. Justin Yifu Lin, 1991. "Education and Innovation Adoption in Agriculture: Evidence from Hybrid Rice in China," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 73(3), pages 713-723.
    3. Som P. Pudasaini, 1983. "The Effects of Education in Agriculture: Evidence from Nepal," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 65(3), pages 509-515.
    4. Azhar, Rauf A, 1991. "Education and Technical Efficiency during the Green Revolution in Pakistan," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 39(3), pages 651-665, April.
    5. Welch, F, 1970. "Education in Production," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 78(1), pages 35-59, Jan.-Feb..
    6. Jamison, Dean T. & Moock, Peter R., 1984. "Farmer education and farm efficiency in Nepal: The role of schooling, extension services, and cognitive skills," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 12(1), pages 67-86, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. SEEBENS Holger & WOBST Peter, 2010. "Social and Individual Costs of Child Labor," EcoMod2003 330700134, EcoMod.
    2. Wobst, Peter & Arndt, Channing, 2004. "HIV/AIDS and Labor Force Upgrading in Tanzania," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 32(11), pages 1831-1847, November.
    3. Wobst, Peter & Arndt, Channing, 2003. "HIV/AIDS and Primary School Performance in Tanzania," 2003 Annual Meeting, August 16-22, 2003, Durban, South Africa 25870, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    4. Arndt, Channing & Wobst, Peter, 2002. "HIV/AIDS and labor markets in Tanzania," TMD discussion papers 102, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    5. Arndt, Channing, 2002. "HIV/AIDS, human capital, and economic prospects for Mozambique," TMD discussion papers 88, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Hussain, S. Sajidin & Byerlee, Derek R., 1995. "Education and Farm Productivity in Post- 'green revolution' Agriculture in Asia," 1994 Conference, August 22-29, 1994, Harare, Zimbabwe 183412, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    2. Kirtti Ranjan Paltasingh & Phanindra Goyari, 2018. "Impact of farmer education on farm productivity under varying technologies: case of paddy growers in India," Agricultural and Food Economics, Springer;Italian Society of Agricultural Economics (SIDEA), vol. 6(1), pages 1-19, December.
    3. Sharada Weir, 1999. "The effects of education on farmer productivity in rural Ethiopia," CSAE Working Paper Series 1999-07, Centre for the Study of African Economies, University of Oxford.
    4. Machethe, Charles Lepepeule, 1990. "The Role of Universities in Human Resource Development for Agricultural Development in Less Developed Countries," 1990 Symposium, Agricultural Restructuring in Southern Africa, July 24-27, 1990, Swakopmund, Namibia 183516, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    5. Rejesus, Roderick M. & Heisey, Paul W. & Smale, Melinda, 1999. "Sources of Productivity Growth in Wheat: A Review of Recent Performance and Medium- to Long-Term Prospects," Economics Working Papers 7693, CIMMYT: International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center.
    6. Simon Appleton & Arsene Balihuta, 1996. "Education and agricultural productivity: Evidence from Uganda," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 8(3), pages 415-444.
    7. Martine Audibert, 1997. "Technical Inefficiency Effects Among Paddy Farmers in the Villages of the ‘Office du Niger’, Mali, West Africa," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 8(4), pages 379-394, November.
    8. Ariel Dinar & Giannis Karagiannis & Vangelis Tzouvelekas, 2002. "Evaluating the Impact of Public and Private Agricultural Extension on Farms Performance: A Non-Neutral Stochastic Frontier Approach," Working Papers 0205, University of Crete, Department of Economics.
    9. Cathal O’Donoghue & Kevin Heanue, 2018. "The impact of formal agricultural education on farm level innovation and management practices," The Journal of Technology Transfer, Springer, vol. 43(4), pages 844-863, August.
    10. Alejandro Ramirez & Gustav Ranis, 1997. "Economic Growth and Human Development," Working Papers 787, Economic Growth Center, Yale University.
    11. Gruber, Lloyd & Kosack, Stephen, 2014. "The tertiary tilt: education and inequality in the developing world," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 54202, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    12. Fleur Wouterse, 2016. "Can human capital variables be technology changing? An empirical test for rural households in Burkina Faso," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 45(2), pages 157-172, April.
    13. Weir, Sharada & Knight, John, 2004. "Externality Effects of Education: Dynamics of the Adoption and Diffusion of an Innovation in Rural Ethiopia," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 53(1), pages 93-113, October.
    14. Yang, Dennis Tao & An, Mark Yuying, 2002. "Human capital, entrepreneurship, and farm household earnings," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(1), pages 65-88, June.
    15. Gust, Sarah & Hanushek, Eric A. & Woessmann, Ludger, 2024. "Global universal basic skills: Current deficits and implications for world development," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 166(C).
    16. Ranis, Gustav & Stewart, Frances & Ramirez, Alejandro, 2000. "Economic Growth and Human Development," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 28(2), pages 197-219, February.
    17. Ortmann, Gerald F., 2005. "Promoting the competitiveness of South African agriculture in a dynamic economic and political environment," Agrekon, Agricultural Economics Association of South Africa (AEASA), vol. 44(3), pages 1-35, September.
    18. David Bishai, 1996. "Quality time: How parents' schooling affects child health through its interaction with childcare time in Bangladesh," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 5(5), pages 383-407, September.
    19. Kiran Prasad Bhatta & Akira Ishida & Kenji Taniguchi & Raksha Sharma, 2008. "Whose Extension Matters? Role of Governmental and Non-Governmental Agricultural Extension on the Technical Efficiency of Rural Nepalese Farms," Journal of South Asian Development, , vol. 3(2), pages 269-295, October.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ags:iaaeo7:198196. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: AgEcon Search (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/iaaeeea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.