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

production to total expenditure is highest in the two northern departments (42 and 46 percent) and
lowest (12 and 16 percent) in Ouémé and Atlantique (see Table 4.1.137).
Female-headed households are often seen as disadvantaged relative to male-headed households.
Indeed, other sections of this report reveal that female-headed households have fewer assets and
smaller farms. Although the total expenditure of female-headed households is 31 percent below
that of male-headed household, female-headed households also have fewer members. The net
effect is that the per capita expenditure of female-headed households is just 6 percent below that of
male-headed households. Furthermore, female-headed households spend a smaller share of their
budget on food. As noted above, this is often associated with a higher standard of living. Finally,
female-headed households rely less on home production than male-headed households. Just 19
percent of their expenditure derives from home production. This contradicts the usual view of
female-headed farm households being mainly subsistence oriented (see Table 4.1.138).
Not surprisingly, the composition of expenditure changes as total expenditure rises. The poorest 20
percent of farm households in Bénin have an average per capita expenditure of just 48 thousand
FCFA. Food accounts for fully 63 percent of the total and home production represents 37 percent.
As expenditure rises, the share allocated to food falls steadily from 63 percent in the lowest
expenditure category to 43 percent in the highest category. The inverse relationship between per
capita expenditure and the food share is an almost universal pattern called Engle's Law. At the
same time, the importance of home production declines from 37 percent in the poorest category to
17 percent in the richest. The falling importance of food produced at home is due to both the
declining food share and a falling percentage of food that comes from own production. In the
poorest expenditure category, households produce 59 percent of their food (in value terms), while
in the highest expenditure category they produce less than 40 percent.
What is the relationship between farm size and expenditure patterns? Household expenditure rises
steadily across farm-size categories, from 618 thousand FCFA in the smallest 20 percent of farms
to double this figure among the largest 20 percent of farms. On the other hand, per capita
expenditure does not vary significantly across farm-size categories. In other words, larger farms
tend to have larger households, but larger farms are not associated with a higher standard of living.
Given the similar levels of per capita expenditure, it is not surprising that the food share is
relatively constant (52-54 percent) across farm-size categories. One notable difference is that home
production plays a larger role in the budget of large farms than small ones. Home production
contributes 13 percent of total expenditure for the smallest farms but 34 percent of the total in the
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