ABSTRACT This paper aims to understand the relationship between households’ livelihood strategy a... more ABSTRACT This paper aims to understand the relationship between households’ livelihood strategy and soil management using commonalities among rural households. We grouped households into four distinct types according to similar livelihood diversification strategies. For each household type, we identified the dominant income-generating strategies as well as the main agronomic activities pursued. The household types were: (I) households that pursue a cereal-based livelihood diversification strategy (23 %); (II) households predominantly engaged in casual off-farm-based strategy (15 %); (III) households that pursue an integrated livelihood strategy (38 %); and (IV) households with a potato-based strategy (24 %). We then explored the relationship between these household types and improved soil management practices. The results showed that households generating their income primarily by growing potatoes (Type IV) were not only economically “better off” but also more likely to undertake improved soil management practices than those pursuing less economically rewarding, cereal-based (Type I) or casual off-farm-based (Type II) livelihood diversification strategies. This was largely attributed to differences in access to institutional capital that determined the degree of agronomic orientation, rather than household assets, such as age, education level of the head, and family labour. Orienting lower income households toward input and output markets through improving their access to institutional capital may help build livelihood strategies with high-economic return that in turn provide incentives to undertake improved soil management practices. The identified household types may guide entry points for development interventions targeting both food security and agricultural sustainability concerns in the central highlands of Ethiopia. The approach can be applied to different geographical regions with similar livelihood circumstances. Development actors need to take into account the specific contexts of their regions and resources needed to develop a typology when designing pathways for any targeted interventions.
This study estimates the technical efficiency measures of maize producing farm households in Ethi... more This study estimates the technical efficiency measures of maize producing farm households in Ethiopia using stochastic frontier (SF) panel models that take different approaches to model firm heterogeneity. The efficiency measures are found to vary depending on how the estimation model treats both unobserved and observed firm heterogeneity. Estimates from the ‘true’ random effects (TRE) models that treat firm effects as heterogeneity are found to be identical to those from pooled SF models. Those results differ from the ones generated from the basic random effects (RE) models that treat firm effects as part of overall technical inefficiency. The more flexible generalised ‘true’ random effects (GTRE) model that splits the error term into firm effects, persistent inefficiency, transient inefficiency, and a random noise component indicates the presence of higher levels of persistent inefficiency than transient inefficiency. The basic truncated-normal RE model and heteroscedastic RE mode...
Sustainable agricultural intensification practices (SAIPs) have been promoted to improve environm... more Sustainable agricultural intensification practices (SAIPs) have been promoted to improve environmental services and farm productivity. However, whether implementations of SAIPs in isolation or in combinations increase economic efficiency of smallholder farmers is unclear. This study investigates the effects of SAIPs on costs and cost efficiency using stochastic frontier modelling techniques with an application to Ethiopian maize production. The econometric approaches account for heterogeneity across farms and heteroscedasticity in the variance of cost inefficiency. The results reveal that combinations of SAIPs appear to reduce cost and cost inefficiency variability but not when they are implemented in isolation. The average cost efficiency of the sample farms was about 80% indicating the presence of considerable room for improvement. Other factors that significantly change economic inefficiency are also discussed. Overall, the results demonstrate the relevance of exploiting synergis...
This paper presents new results on the determinants of adoption of various sustainable agricultur... more This paper presents new results on the determinants of adoption of various sustainable agricultural intensification practices (SAIPs) which consist of input-intensive and natural resource management (NRM) activities, using panel data from Ethiopia. It uses a novel statistical approach: a dynamic multivariate probit model which allows for both intertemporal and inter-activity correlation between unobserved factors that may drive adoption. We complement the analysis using an ordered probit model to estimate the degree of adoption. Results reveal complex complementarity and substitution effects, as well as new insights into deterministic factors that influence dynamic adoption. We reveal four significant results of policy relevance. First, the probability of adoption of each practice significantly increases if the household had adopted each practice in a previous period. Second, significant complementarities and trade-offs exist between SAIPs over time. In particular, we reveal positiv...
ABSTRACT This paper aims to understand the relationship between households’ livelihood strategy a... more ABSTRACT This paper aims to understand the relationship between households’ livelihood strategy and soil management using commonalities among rural households. We grouped households into four distinct types according to similar livelihood diversification strategies. For each household type, we identified the dominant income-generating strategies as well as the main agronomic activities pursued. The household types were: (I) households that pursue a cereal-based livelihood diversification strategy (23 %); (II) households predominantly engaged in casual off-farm-based strategy (15 %); (III) households that pursue an integrated livelihood strategy (38 %); and (IV) households with a potato-based strategy (24 %). We then explored the relationship between these household types and improved soil management practices. The results showed that households generating their income primarily by growing potatoes (Type IV) were not only economically “better off” but also more likely to undertake improved soil management practices than those pursuing less economically rewarding, cereal-based (Type I) or casual off-farm-based (Type II) livelihood diversification strategies. This was largely attributed to differences in access to institutional capital that determined the degree of agronomic orientation, rather than household assets, such as age, education level of the head, and family labour. Orienting lower income households toward input and output markets through improving their access to institutional capital may help build livelihood strategies with high-economic return that in turn provide incentives to undertake improved soil management practices. The identified household types may guide entry points for development interventions targeting both food security and agricultural sustainability concerns in the central highlands of Ethiopia. The approach can be applied to different geographical regions with similar livelihood circumstances. Development actors need to take into account the specific contexts of their regions and resources needed to develop a typology when designing pathways for any targeted interventions.
This study estimates the technical efficiency measures of maize producing farm households in Ethi... more This study estimates the technical efficiency measures of maize producing farm households in Ethiopia using stochastic frontier (SF) panel models that take different approaches to model firm heterogeneity. The efficiency measures are found to vary depending on how the estimation model treats both unobserved and observed firm heterogeneity. Estimates from the ‘true’ random effects (TRE) models that treat firm effects as heterogeneity are found to be identical to those from pooled SF models. Those results differ from the ones generated from the basic random effects (RE) models that treat firm effects as part of overall technical inefficiency. The more flexible generalised ‘true’ random effects (GTRE) model that splits the error term into firm effects, persistent inefficiency, transient inefficiency, and a random noise component indicates the presence of higher levels of persistent inefficiency than transient inefficiency. The basic truncated-normal RE model and heteroscedastic RE mode...
Sustainable agricultural intensification practices (SAIPs) have been promoted to improve environm... more Sustainable agricultural intensification practices (SAIPs) have been promoted to improve environmental services and farm productivity. However, whether implementations of SAIPs in isolation or in combinations increase economic efficiency of smallholder farmers is unclear. This study investigates the effects of SAIPs on costs and cost efficiency using stochastic frontier modelling techniques with an application to Ethiopian maize production. The econometric approaches account for heterogeneity across farms and heteroscedasticity in the variance of cost inefficiency. The results reveal that combinations of SAIPs appear to reduce cost and cost inefficiency variability but not when they are implemented in isolation. The average cost efficiency of the sample farms was about 80% indicating the presence of considerable room for improvement. Other factors that significantly change economic inefficiency are also discussed. Overall, the results demonstrate the relevance of exploiting synergis...
This paper presents new results on the determinants of adoption of various sustainable agricultur... more This paper presents new results on the determinants of adoption of various sustainable agricultural intensification practices (SAIPs) which consist of input-intensive and natural resource management (NRM) activities, using panel data from Ethiopia. It uses a novel statistical approach: a dynamic multivariate probit model which allows for both intertemporal and inter-activity correlation between unobserved factors that may drive adoption. We complement the analysis using an ordered probit model to estimate the degree of adoption. Results reveal complex complementarity and substitution effects, as well as new insights into deterministic factors that influence dynamic adoption. We reveal four significant results of policy relevance. First, the probability of adoption of each practice significantly increases if the household had adopted each practice in a previous period. Second, significant complementarities and trade-offs exist between SAIPs over time. In particular, we reveal positiv...
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