Oil palm and structural transformation of agriculture in Indonesia

Daniel Chrisendo, Hermanto Siregar and Matin Qaim

No 33, EFForTS Discussion Paper Series from University of Goettingen, Collaborative Research Centre 990 "EFForTS, Ecological and Socioeconomic Functions of Tropical Lowland Rainforest Transformation Systems (Sumatra, Indonesia)"

Abstract: Structural transformation of agriculture typically involves a gradual increase of mean farm sizes and a reallocation of labor from agriculture to other sectors. Such structural transformation is often fostered through innovations in agriculture and newly emerging opportunities in manufacturing and services. Here, we use panel data from farm households in Indonesia to test and support the hypothesis that the recent oil palm boom contributes to structural transformation. Oil palm is capital-intensive but requires much less labor per hectare than traditional crops. Farmers who adopted oil palm increase their cropping area, meaning that some of the labor saved per hectare is used for expanding the farm. Average farm sizes increased in recent years. In addition, we observe a positive association between oil palm adoption and off-farm income, suggesting that some of the labor saved per hectare is also reallocated to non-agricultural activities. Oil palm adoption significantly increases the likelihood of households pursuing own non-farm businesses. However, oil palm adoption does not increase the likelihood of being employed in manufacturing or services, which is probably due to the limited non-farm labor demand in the local setting. Equitable and sustainable agricultural transformation requires new lucrative non-agricultural employment opportunities in rural areas.

Keywords: Cross-country dataset; lower-middle income countries; risk preferences; smallholder farmers; time preferences (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 O14 Q12 Q15 R14 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
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 (1)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:crc990:33

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