Somewhere in between Towns, Markets and Jobs – Agricultural Intensification in the Rural–Urban Interface

We propose a flexible conceptual and methodological framework to model the dynamics of agricultural intensification in the rural–urban interfaces of large cities. We focus particularly on the effects of polycentric urbanisation patterns and trade-offs between agricultural intensification and off-farm employment. In our conceptual framework – modelling household decision-making based on utility maximisation – we show that agricultural intensification in the rural–urban interface is likely to exhibit non-linear and complex spatial patterns due to location-dependent variation in output prices and wage rates. This is confirmed by our empirical analysis of a primary data set of 638 smallholder farms in the rural–urban interface of Bangalore. Applying Structured Additive Regression (STAR) techniques, we model two-dimensional urbanisation effects using household and village coordinates. Results imply that proximity to secondary towns and road infrastructure is the primary channel of urbanisation effects on the uptake of modern agricultural inputs. Furthermore, proximity to the large urban centre of Bangalore appears to increase the opportunity costs of agricultural intensification through improved access to off-farm labour opportunities. Overall, we show that patterns of agricultural intensification around urban centres are not necessarily radially symmetric.