Cheaper, faster, and more than good enough: is GPS the new gold standard in land area measurement ?

Calogero Carletto, Sydney Gourlay, Siobhan Murray, Alberto Zezza, Calogero Carletto, Sydney Gourlay, Siobhan Murray and Alberto Zezza
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: Alberto Zezza, Calogero Carletto and Sydney Gourlay

No 7759, Policy Research Working Paper Series from The World Bank

Abstract: In rural societies of low- and middle-income countries, land is a major measure of wealth, a critical input in agricultural production, and a key variable for assessing agricultural performance and productivity. In the absence of cadastral information to refer to, measures of land plots have historically been taken with one of two approaches: traversing (accurate, but cumbersome), and farmers'self-report (cheap, but marred by measurement error). Recently, the advent of cheap handheld GPS devices has held promise for balancing cost and precision. Guided by purposely collected primary data from Ethiopia, Nigeria, and Tanzania (Zanzibar), and with consideration for practical household survey implementation, the paper assesses the nature and magnitude of measurement error under different measurement methods and proposes a set of recommendations for plot area measurement. The results largely point to the support of GPS measurement, with simultaneous collection of farmer self-reported areas.

Keywords: Primary Metals; Food Security; Labor&Employment Law; Global Environment; Agricultural Economics (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016-07-21
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-agr
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (12)

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