Intensification of Lowland Cropping Systems and Informal Land Ownership in West Africa: Comparison of Two Large Inland Markets in Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana

Takeshi Sakurai

No 586, Discussion Paper Series from Institute of Economic Research, Hitotsubashi University

Abstract: The enhancement of agricultural productivity is the key to economic development of Sub-Saharan Africa. Particularly, the intensification of lowland agriculture is critically important in West Africa since demand for rice and vegetables is increasing rapidly due to urbanization. As has been debated much, informal land tenure system in Sub-Saharan Africa can be a constraint to the intensification. This paper, applying an endogenous switching probit model where lowland ownership is endogenously selected, analyzes data collected in the area around two large inland cities, Bouaké in Côte d’Ivoire and Kumasi in Ghana. Regression results reveal that village ownership has a positive impact on the intensification of lowland cropping in the Bouaké area, while it discourages the intensification of lowland cropping as well as investment in tree plantation in lowlands in the Kumasi area. The findings support the hypotheses since land is relatively scarcer in the Kumasi area than in the Bouaké area.

Keywords: informal land ownership; lowland agriculture; intensification; land use; crop choice; Côte d’Ivoire; Ghana (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 30 pages
Date: 2013-05
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-afr and nep-agr
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://hermes-ir.lib.hit-u.ac.jp/hermes/ir/re/25676/DP586.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:hit:hituec:586

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Discussion Paper Series from Institute of Economic Research, Hitotsubashi University Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Hiromichi Miyake ().