23.01.2014 Views

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

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

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

SHOW MORE
SHOW LESS

Create successful ePaper yourself

Turn your PDF publications into a flip-book with our unique Google optimized e-Paper software.

sold on the market. Nonetheless, the effect is rather small: each additional household member<br />

is associated with a reduction in the market surplus ratio of 0.4 percentage points.<br />

<br />

Oddly, marketed surplus is positively associated with literacy but negatively associated with<br />

education. The coefficients imply that a head with three years of education who is literate will<br />

market more than an illiterate head with no education, but household heads with more than 10<br />

years of education will have a smaller market surplus. Perhaps some basic education is<br />

necessary to take advantage of market opportunities, but highly educated household heads have<br />

better employment options outside agriculture and only produce for their household needs.<br />

<br />

Larger farms sell a larger percentage of their output, though the effect is modest. Each<br />

additional hectare in the main season raises the marketed surplus by 1.1 percentage points and<br />

each extra hectare in the second season increases marketed surplus by 2.5 percentage points.<br />

<br />

Growing cotton is associated with a larger marketed surplus. Given two otherwise identical<br />

farms in the same department, the one growing cotton will have a marketed surplus 16<br />

percentage points higher than the one that is not. Membership in a groupement villageois (GV)<br />

is associated with another 5 percentage points in the marketed surplus ratio.<br />

<br />

Irrigation is associated with a 29 percentage point increase in the marketed surplus ratio.<br />

Irrigation increases production, allowing more to be sold, but it also allows the cultivation of<br />

crops such as vegetables and rice that are often commercialized.<br />

<br />

Finally, the departmental variables have a strong effect on the level of marketed surplus. Other<br />

factors equal, a farm in Atacora will have a market surplus ration 51 percentage points below<br />

that of those in Atlantique, while the corresponding figure for Borgou is 44 percentage points.<br />

Farms in Mono, Ouémé, and Zou also have significantly smaller market surplus rations, though<br />

the difference is somewhat less (22-35 percent). Since distance to road and sous-prefecture<br />

have already been controlled, these regional results suggest that access to major urban centers<br />

may be more important than access to a road or a provincial capital in terms of stimulating<br />

large market surpluses.<br />

Some of the statistically insignificant results are also interesting. Poor households are no more<br />

subsistence-oriented that rich households, after controlling for farm size and other factors.<br />

Furthermore, female-headed households are just as market oriented as male-headed households.<br />

78

Hooray! Your file is uploaded and ready to be published.

Saved successfully!

Ooh no, something went wrong!