Livelihood responses of smallholder farmers in Southwest China to the decline in rubber prices

S. Jin, H. Waibel, Shi Min and Jikun Huang

No 277431, 2018 Conference, July 28-August 2, 2018, Vancouver, British Columbia from International Association of Agricultural Economists

Abstract: This paper explores diversification for land and labor by smallholder farmers in Southwest China in response to the rubber price declines. Panel data of some 600 smallholder rubber farmers in Xishuangbanna, Southwest China in 2012 and 2014 is employed. Livelihood diversification is expressed by calculating Shannon for land and labor. We developed Tobit panel models to identify the determinants of diversification, and OLS and Quantile regression models to analyze the correlation between diversification and income. We find that (i) household incomes are more diverse after the decline of rubber prices; (ii) diversification contributes to smoothing household income; (iii) households with higher incomes are more likely to diversify their portfolios of crop and employment; (iv) diversification contributes to decrease of income inequality. We conclude that a more diversification in labor is more effective in mitigating negative effects of shocks from rubber price decline. Land diversification is likely to be a more effective ex-ante shock alleviation strategy. Acknowledgement :

Keywords: Consumer/Household; Economics (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018-07
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-agr, nep-cna, nep-dev and nep-tra
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ags:iaae18:277431

DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.277431

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