Impact Of Agricultural Market Reforms On Smallholder Farmers In ...

This would not be surprising in light of increases in cotton production. As discussed in Chapter 2,
increases in cotton prices and cotton output have resulted in an additional 63 thousand FCFA of
gross cotton revenue per farm household in Benin. crease in gross revenue from cotton of 63
thousand FCFA per farm household in Bénin.
The level of poverty in different household groups can be summarized as follows:
The incidence of poverty is highest in Atacora (42 percent) and lowest in Atlantique (6
percent) and Zou (16 percent). This is what we would expect given the patterns in average
per capita expenditure discussed earlier. The poverty gap measure shows roughly the same
order.
Male- and female-headed households have the same incidence of poverty (21 percent). On
the other hand, the poverty gap for male-headed households is larger, suggesting that the
depth of poverty among poor male-headed households is greater.
The poverty rate is higher among households with many members compared to those with
few members. In fact, the incidence of poverty is twice as great among households with
more than 10 members compared to households with 5 or fewer members.
Larger farms are associated with lower levels of poverty. Although the smallest farms do
not fit well in the pattern, across the next four farm size categories, the incidence of poverty
falls steadily from 30 percent to 11 percent. The poverty gap falls in a similar fashion.
Similarly, poverty is lower among farm households that sell a larger share of their output.
The poverty rate is around 30 percent for those selling less than half of their crop output (in
value terms) and just 12 percent for those selling more than three-quarters of the total.
Finally, the poverty rate among cotton farmers is essentially the same as that of other
farmers in Bénin. Given the large increases in cotton production and the increases in the
real price of cotton, it is quite possible that cotton farmers were poorer than other farmers a
decade ago, but have now achieved parity.
It should be recognized that the ECVR poverty line is relatively low. If we adopt the
World Bank’s international poverty line of US$ 1 per person per day, then almost all the
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