Agricultural Intensification : The Status in Six African Countries
The Boserup-Ruthenberg framework has long been used to explain and understand the determinants of agricultural growth, the nature of the intensification of farming systems, investment, and technology adoption. The literature has produced an extensi...
| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Policy Research Working Paper |
| Language: | English en_US |
| Published: |
World Bank Group, Washington, DC
2014
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2014/11/20389880/agricultural-intensification-status-six-african-countries http://hdl.handle.net/10986/20649 |
| Summary: | The Boserup-Ruthenberg framework has
long been used to explain and understand the determinants of
agricultural growth, the nature of the intensification of
farming systems, investment, and technology adoption. The
literature has produced an extensive body of evidence that
summarizes or tests the hypothesis in Africa and often found
it confirmed. However, in the past two decades, rapid
population growth has put African farming systems under
stress. At the same time, there has been a sharp increase in
urbanization and economic growth that is providing new
market opportunities for farmers. It is therefore necessary
to investigate whether this has resulted in rapid
intensification of farming systems, permitting rapid
agricultural growth and maintenance or increase in the
incomes of the farming population. This paper describes the
status of intensification in six African countries using the
first round of data from the Living Standards Measurement
Study-Integrated Surveys on Agriculture. In addition, the
paper (i) develops internationally comparable measures of
overall agro-ecological crop potential and urban gravity in
the farmers' location and (ii) estimates the causal
impact of agro-ecological potential and urban gravity on
population density, infrastructure, and market access and on
a range of agricultural intensification variables. The paper
shows that the new measures have relevant explanatory power.
The descriptive analysis shows that the patterns of
intensification observed across countries suggest several
inconsistencies with Boserup-Ruthenberg. The paper also
finds that urban gravity, except for its impact on crop
intensities, has little impact on other intensification indicators. |
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