Challenging Small-scale Farming, A Non-parametric Analysis of the (Inverse) Relationship Between Farm Productivity and Farm Size in Burundi

Marijn Verschelde (), Marijke F.C. D'Haese, Ellen Vandamme and Glenn Rayp

No 115550, 2011 International Congress, August 30-September 2, 2011, Zurich, Switzerland from European Association of Agricultural Economists

Abstract: We use a nonparametric estimation of the production function to investigate the relation- ship between farm productivity and farming scale in poor smallholder agricultural systems in the north of Burundi. Burundi is one of the poorest countries in the world, with a predominant small scale subsistence farming sector. A Kernel regression is used on data of mixed cropping systems to study the determinants of production including different factors that have been identified in literature as missing variables in the testing of the inverse relationship such as soil quality, location and household heterogeneity. Household data on farm activities and crop production was gathered among 640 households in 2007 in two Northern provinces of Burundi. Four production models were specified each with different control variables. For the relatively small farms, we find clear evidence of an inverse relationship. The relatively large farms show a different pattern. Returns to scale are found to be farm scale dependent. Parametric Cobb-Douglass models tend to over-simplify the debate on returns to scale because of not accounting for the different effects of large farms. Other factors that significantly positively affect production include the soil quality and production orientation towards banana or cash crop production. Production seems to be negatively affected by field fragmentation.

Keywords: Farm Management; Productivity Analysis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 12
Date: 2011
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-afr, nep-agr and nep-eff
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/115550/files/Verschelde_Marijn%20_518.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Challenging Small-Scale Farming: A Non-Parametric Analysis of the (Inverse) Relationship Between Farm Productivity and Farm Size in Burundi (2013)
Working Paper: Challenging small-scale farming, a non-parametric analysis of the (inverse) relationship between farm productivity and farm size in Burundi (2011)
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:eaae11:115550

DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.115550

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in 2011 International Congress, August 30-September 2, 2011, Zurich, Switzerland from European Association of Agricultural Economists Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by AgEcon Search ().