Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Household and individual characteristics are also related to participation in non-
farm employment. Individuals from larger households are more likely to engage in
non-farm employment, while individuals from larger farms (in terms of area owned
or cultivated) are less likely to do so. However, the effect of such factors is relatively
small, compared to the individual characteristics. These results indicate the importance
of gender. Men have a higher probability of engaging, particularly exclusively, in
non-farm employment. Age does not appear to be a strong determinant of non-farm
employment, although children under 15 years of age have a much lower probability
of engaging in non-farm employment. Also not surprisingly, education is quite
important. Primary schooling increases the chance that an individual will be employed
in non-farm activities. A secondary education increases this probability almost
fivefold and a post-secondary education has a somewhat stronger effect. This under-
lines the importance of education for girls in improving both, their own livelihoods
and those of their families. But opportunities to capitalize on the investment in
education and human capital through non-farm employment are still much greater
the closer one is located to urban centres.
The role of non-farm employment in external input use
Another issue of interest is the relationship between non-farm employment and farm
management practices, including both intensification and sustainability perspectives.
Two more econometric models were therefore estimated and are also presented in
the Appendix. These analyses are all at household level. First, the effect of location,
as well as of various household and farm characteristics on expenditures on cropping
inputs per hectare (primarily fertilizers, pesticides and extra hired labour) was
examined. These expenditures are an indicator of intensification or general invest-
ment in agricultural production. Input expenditures are, of course, far higher for the
intensive horticultural production activities in the new urban links zone. But it also
turns out that farms in the locally linked and leakage to urban areas zones tend to use
significantly lower input levels than those in the traditional zone. Furthermore, non-
farm income, either in absolute terms or as a percentage of total household income,
does not seem to affect expenditures on inputs. Combined with the findings on
individual access to non-farm employment, these findings suggest that farms closer
to urban areas, but not in the new urban links or peri-urban zones around cities, are
not investing more in agricultural production than those further away. In particular,
increased incomes from non-farm employment opportunities are not being invested
directly in farm production (at least not in improving crop production). This
suggests that income earned from non-farm activities is not used to substitute the
labour withdrawn from agriculture.
As expenditures on crop inputs also capture differences in production systems
and their profitability, a more detailed analysis was performed on the use of inorganic
fertilizer. Fertilizer use and its relation to soil nutrient balances (discussed below)
are key concerns in the African context, where most of our data come from, given
the extent to which soil nutrients are being mined. Our dataset indicates that a farm
household's decision to use fertilizer can be separated from the second decision on
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