Diversification towards high value export production, farm household productivity and efficiency in Senegal

Crop diversification or product innovation is one alternative put forward in the literature to enhance farmer’s agricultural productivity in a context of imperfect or missing factor markets. In this paper we provide empirical evidence of how this alternative - induced in part by the modern agri-food supply chains - is effective in les Niayes, Senegal. We analyse agricultural productivity and efficiency at the household level using three rounds of panel data and nonparametric-based methodology. We find that rural farmers involved into high value green bean export production are more productive and efficient than their counterparts that are not involved into this type of crop diversification. This result suggests that productivity and efficiency gains from involvement in high value export production can spread out to the entire farm.