Agricultural Intensification : The Status in Six African Countries

Binswanger-Mkhize, Hans P. ; Savastano, Sara

World Bank Group, Washington, DC

关键词: Farm Input;    Rural Development;    Agricultural Productivity and Markets;    Agricultural Institution;    Agricultural Policy;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-7116
RP-ID  :  WPS7116

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

The Boserup-Ruthenberg framework haslong been used to explain and understand the determinants ofagricultural growth, the nature of the intensification offarming systems, investment, and technology adoption. Theliterature has produced an extensive body of evidence thatsummarizes or tests the hypothesis in Africa and often foundit confirmed. However, in the past two decades, rapidpopulation growth has put African farming systems understress. At the same time, there has been a sharp increase inurbanization and economic growth that is providing newmarket opportunities for farmers. It is therefore necessaryto investigate whether this has resulted in rapidintensification of farming systems, permitting rapidagricultural growth and maintenance or increase in theincomes of the farming population. This paper describes thestatus of intensification in six African countries using thefirst round of data from the Living Standards MeasurementStudy-Integrated Surveys on Agriculture. In addition, thepaper (i) develops internationally comparable measures ofoverall agro-ecological crop potential and urban gravity inthe farmers' location and (ii) estimates the causalimpact of agro-ecological potential and urban gravity onpopulation density, infrastructure, and market access and ona range of agricultural intensification variables. The papershows that the new measures have relevant explanatory power.The descriptive analysis shows that the patterns ofintensification observed across countries suggest severalinconsistencies with Boserup-Ruthenberg. The paper alsofinds that urban gravity, except for its impact on cropintensities, has little impact on other intensification indicators.