Farmer heterogeneity and differential livelihood impacts of oil palm expansion in Sumatra, Indonesia

Vijesh Krishna, Michael Euler, Hermanto Siregar and Matin Qaim

No 235218, 2016 Annual Meeting, July 31-August 2, Boston, Massachusetts from Agricultural and Applied Economics Association

Abstract: We examine the impact of oil palm expansion on smallholder livelihoods in Indonesia, using farm-household survey data. Treatment-effects and endogenous switching regression models suggest that smallholders benefit from oil palm adoption on average. Part of the benefit stems from the fact that oil palm requires less labour than rubber, the main alternative crop. This allows oil palm adopters to allocate more labour to off-farm activities and/or to expand their farmland. Households with a lower land-to-labour ratio are typically better-off with rubber. Depending on various social and institutional factors, households’ access to land, labour, and capital varies, contributing to impact heterogeneity.

Keywords: Agricultural and Food Policy; Land Economics/Use (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 30
Date: 2016
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-agr, nep-dev and nep-sea
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/235218/files/Manuscript_AAEA_KESQ.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ags:aaea16:235218

DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.235218

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in 2016 Annual Meeting, July 31-August 2, Boston, Massachusetts from Agricultural and Applied Economics Association Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by AgEcon Search ().