IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hhs/gunwpe/0402.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Estimating Returns to Soil and Water Conservation Investments - An Application to Crop Yield in Kenya

Author

Listed:
  • Nyangena, Wilfred

    () (School of Economics, University of Nairobi)

  • Köhlin, Gunnar

    () (Department of Economics, School of Business, Economics and Law, Göteborg University)

Abstract

Productivity gains from soil and water conservation (SWC) have empirical support in research stations. Previous empirical results from on-farm adoption of SWC are, however, varied. This study investigated the impact of soil conservation investment on farm productivity in three regions in Kenya. Using plot-level survey data, we focused on land productivity on plots with and without SWC. We tested the overall soil conservation hypothesis that increased SWC is beneficial for yield, as well as more specific hypotheses that SWC affects levels of inputs, returns from these inputs, and crop characteristics. The results showed a mixed picture where plots without SWC generally have higher yield values per hectare. However, plots with SWC are significantly steeper and more eroded than plots without SWC. A more careful analysis of a two-stage random effects–switching regression estimation comparing three SWC technologies to plots without SWC indicated that SWC increased the returns from degraded plots and sometimes from other inputs. A simulation exercise based on these estimations also showed that, in most cases, adoption has been beneficial for those who have done it and would be beneficial for those who have not.

Suggested Citation

  • Nyangena, Wilfred & Köhlin, Gunnar, 2009. "Estimating Returns to Soil and Water Conservation Investments - An Application to Crop Yield in Kenya," Working Papers in Economics 402, University of Gothenburg, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:hhs:gunwpe:0402
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/2077/21493
    Download Restriction: no

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Christopher B. Barrett & Christine M. Moser & Oloro V. McHugh & Joeli Barison, 2004. "Better Technology, Better Plots, or Better Farmers? Identifying Changes in Productivity and Risk among Malagasy Rice Farmers," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 86(4), pages 869-888.
    2. Byiringiro, Fidele Usabuwera & Reardon, Thomas, 1996. "Farm productivity in Rwanda: effects of farm size, erosion, and soil conservation investments," Agricultural Economics of Agricultural Economists, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 15(2), November.
    3. Benjamin, Dwayne, 1995. "Can unobserved land quality explain the inverse productivity relationship?," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(1), pages 51-84, February.
    4. Feder, Gershon & Just, Richard E & Zilberman, David, 1985. "Adoption of Agricultural Innovations in Developing Countries: A Survey," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 33(2), pages 255-298, January.
    5. George E. Battese, 1997. "A Note On The Estimation Of Cobb-Douglas Production Functions When Some Explanatory Variables Have Zero Values," Journal of Agricultural Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 48(1-3), pages 250-252.
    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. Awotide, B.A. & Abdoulaye, Tahirou & Alene, Arega & Manyong, Victor M., 2015. "Impact of Access to Credit on Agricultural Productivity: Evidence from Smallholder Cassava Farmers in Nigeria," 2015 Conference, August 9-14, 2015, Milan, Italy 210969, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    2. Zhunusova, Eliza & Kyalo Willy, Daniel & Holm-Müller, Karin, 2013. "An Analysis of Returns to Integrated Soil Conservation Practices in the Lake Naivasha Basin, Kenya," 2013 AAAE Fourth International Conference, September 22-25, 2013, Hammamet, Tunisia 160676, African Association of Agricultural Economists (AAAE).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Kenya; soil conservation; switching regression; rural households; yields;

    JEL classification:

    • D61 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Allocative Efficiency; Cost-Benefit Analysis
    • Q12 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Agriculture - - - Micro Analysis of Farm Firms, Farm Households, and Farm Input Markets
    • Q16 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Agriculture - - - R&D; Agricultural Technology; Biofuels; Agricultural Extension Services

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:hhs:gunwpe:0402. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Marie Andersson). General contact details of provider: http://edirc.repec.org/data/naiguse.html .

    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 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.

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

    IDEAS is a RePEc service hosted by the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis . RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.