IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ags/aaea13/150638.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Off-farm Work and Fertilizer Intensification among Smallholder Farmers in Kenya: A Cross-Crop Comparison

Author

Listed:
  • Mathenge, Mary K.
  • Smale, Melinda
  • Opiyo, Joseph

Abstract

Off-farm work accounts for a substantial and growing share of household income among smallholder farmers in most of Sub-Saharan Africa, but evidence on the effects of these earnings on farm investments remains sparse. We use panel data from a sample of smallholder farmers in Kenya to estimate input demand for fertilizer, testing the effects of earnings from nonfarm activities, agricultural wage labor on other farms, and combined off-farm sources. We compare effects among three types of crops: a major food staple (maize), and emerging cash crop (vegetables), and a traditional export crop (tea). We find that, holding other factors constant, off-farm work detracts from fertilizer application rates on maize and vegetables. Nonfarm income drives these results. Off-farm work has no effect on fertilizer application to tea. Results suggest competition for household resources between farm and nonfarm sectors, with implications for public investments in rural development as Kenyan smallholders commercialize.

Suggested Citation

  • Mathenge, Mary K. & Smale, Melinda & Opiyo, Joseph, 2013. "Off-farm Work and Fertilizer Intensification among Smallholder Farmers in Kenya: A Cross-Crop Comparison," 2013 Annual Meeting, August 4-6, 2013, Washington, D.C. 150638, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    • Handle: RePEc:ags:aaea13:150638
    DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.150638
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/150638/files/Mathenge_%20Smale_%20and%20Opiyo%20Aug%201.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.22004/ag.econ.150638?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Thomas Reardon & Kostas Stamoulis & Prabhu Pingali, 2007. "Rural nonfarm employment in developing countries in an era of globalization," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 37(s1), pages 173-183, December.
    2. Bezu, Sosina & Barrett, Christopher B. & Holden, Stein T., 2012. "Does the Nonfarm Economy Offer Pathways for Upward Mobility? Evidence from a Panel Data Study in Ethiopia," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 40(8), pages 1634-1646.
    3. Wiggins, Steve & Kirsten, Johann & Llambí, Luis, 2010. "The Future of Small Farms," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 38(10), pages 1341-1348, October.
    4. Huffman, Wallace E, 1980. "Farm and Off-Farm Work Decisions: The Role of Human Capital," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 62(1), pages 14-23, February.
    5. Marenya, Paswel P. & Barrett, Christopher B., 2007. "Household-level determinants of adoption of improved natural resources management practices among smallholder farmers in western Kenya," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 32(4), pages 515-536, August.
    6. Benjamin Davis & Gero Carletto & Paul Winters, 2010. "Migration, Transfers and Economic Decision Making among Agricultural Households: an Introduction," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 46(1), pages 1-13.
    7. Tomoya Matsumoto & Yoko Kijima & Takashi Yamano, 2006. "The role of local nonfarm activities and migration in reducing poverty: evidence from Ethiopia, Kenya, and Uganda," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 35(s3), pages 449-458, November.
    8. Keijiro Otsuka & Takashi Yamano, 2006. "Introduction to the special issue on the role of nonfarm income in poverty reduction: evidence from Asia and East Africa," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 35(s3), pages 393-397, November.
    9. Chamberlain, Gary, 1984. "Panel data," Handbook of Econometrics, in: Z. Griliches† & M. D. Intriligator (ed.), Handbook of Econometrics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 22, pages 1247-1318, Elsevier.
    10. Mundlak, Yair, 1978. "On the Pooling of Time Series and Cross Section Data," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 46(1), pages 69-85, January.
    11. Smith, Richard J & Blundell, Richard W, 1986. "An Exogeneity Test for a Simultaneous Equation Tobit Model with an Application to Labor Supply," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 54(3), pages 679-685, May.
    12. Jeffrey M Wooldridge, 2010. "Econometric Analysis of Cross Section and Panel Data," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 2, volume 1, number 0262232588, April.
    13. Paswel P. Marenya & Christopher B. Barrett, 2009. "Soil quality and fertilizer use rates among smallholder farmers in western Kenya," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 40(5), pages 561-572, September.
    14. Benjamin Davis & Paul Winters & Thomas Reardon & Kostas Stamoulis, 2009. "Rural nonfarm employment and farming: household‐level linkages," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 40(2), pages 119-123, March.
    15. Ahituv, Avner & Kimhi, Ayal, 2002. "Off-farm work and capital accumulation decisions of farmers over the life-cycle: the role of heterogeneity and state dependence," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(2), pages 329-353, August.
    16. Barrett, C. B. & Reardon, T. & Webb, P., 2001. "Nonfarm income diversification and household livelihood strategies in rural Africa: concepts, dynamics, and policy implications," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 26(4), pages 315-331, August.
    17. Mathenge, Mary K. & Tschirley, David L., 2008. "Off-Farm Work and Farm Production Decisions: Evidence from Maize-Producing Households in Rural Kenya," Working Papers 202609, Egerton University, Tegemeo Institute of Agricultural Policy and Development.
    18. Marenya, Paswel Phiri & Barrett, Christopher B., 2009. "The effect of soil quality on fertilizer use rates among smallholder farmers in western Kenya," 2009 Conference, August 16-22, 2009, Beijing, China 51671, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Salau, S. & Omotesho, O. & Muhammad-Lawal, A., 2018. "Agricultural Commercialization, Fertilizer Use and Non-Farm Employment: What Options for Smallholder Farmers in Nigeria?," 2018 Conference, July 28-August 2, 2018, Vancouver, British Columbia 277180, International Association of Agricultural Economists.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Mathenge, Mary K. & Smale, Melinda, 2013. "Off-farm Income and Fertilizer Investments by Smallholder Farmers in Kenya," 2013 Fourth International Conference, September 22-25, 2013, Hammamet, Tunisia 161470, African Association of Agricultural Economists (AAAE).
    2. Smale, Melinda & Kusunose, Yoko & Mathenge, Mary K. & Alia, Didier, 2014. "Destination or Distraction? Querying the Linkage between Off-farm Income and Farm Investments in Kenya," Food Security International Development Working Papers 196829, Michigan State University, Department of Agricultural, Food, and Resource Economics.
    3. Smale, Melinda & Mathenge, Mary K. & Opiyo, Joseph, 2015. "Nonfarm Work and Fertilizer Use Among Smallholder Farmers in Kenya: A Cross-Crop Comparison," Working Papers 206441, Egerton University, Tegemeo Institute of Agricultural Policy and Development.
    4. Muyanga, Milu & Jayne, T.S., 2014. "Effects of rising rural population density on smallholder agriculture in Kenya," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 98-113.
    5. Mathenge, Mary K. & Smale, Melinda & Olwande, John, 2014. "The impacts of hybrid maize seed on the welfare of farming households in Kenya," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 262-271.
    6. Mathenge, Mary K. & Smale, Melinda & Olwande, John, 2012. "The Impact of Maize Hybrids on Income, Poverty, and Inequality among Smallholder Farmers in Kenya," Food Security International Development Working Papers 146931, Michigan State University, Department of Agricultural, Food, and Resource Economics.
    7. Getahun, Tigabu & Fetene, Gebeyehu, 2022. "Determinants of Participation in Rural Off-Farm Activities and Its Effects on Food Shortage, Relative Deprivation and Diet Diversity," Discussion Papers 319328, University of Bonn, Center for Development Research (ZEF).
    8. Lenis Saweda O. Liverpool-Tasie, 2017. "Is fertiliser use inconsistent with expected profit maximization in sub-Saharan Africa? “Evidence from Nigeria”," Journal of Agricultural Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 68(1), pages 22-44, February.
    9. Marwan Benali & Bernhard Brümmer & Victor Afari‐Sefa, 2018. "Smallholder participation in vegetable exports and age‐disaggregated labor allocation in Northern Tanzania," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 49(5), pages 549-562, September.
    10. Hassen, Sied, 2018. "The effect of farmyard manure on the continued and discontinued use of inorganic fertilizer in Ethiopia: An ordered probit analysis," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 523-532.
    11. Josephson, Anna Leigh & Michler, Jeffrey D., 2015. "To Specialize or Diversify: Agricultural Diversity and Poverty Persistence in Ethiopia," 2015 Conference, August 9-14, 2015, Milan, Italy 212459, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    12. William J. Burke & Thom. S. Jayne & J. Roy Black, 2017. "Factors explaining the low and variable profitability of fertilizer application to maize in Zambia," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 48(1), pages 115-126, January.
    13. Michler, Jeffrey D. & Josephson, Anna L., 2017. "To Specialize or Diversify: Agricultural Diversity and Poverty Dynamics in Ethiopia," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 89(C), pages 214-226.
    14. Burke, William J. & Jayne, Thom S. & Snapp, Sieglinde S., 2022. "Nitrogen efficiency by soil quality and management regimes on Malawi farms: Can fertilizer use remain profitable?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 152(C).
    15. Tesfaye Woldeyohanes & Thomas Heckelei & Yves Surry, 2017. "Effect of off-farm income on smallholder commercialization: panel evidence from rural households in Ethiopia," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 48(2), pages 207-218, March.
    16. Olson, David W. & Mason, Nicole M., 2017. "Maize Marketing Boards and Sustainable Intensification: Panel Survey Evidence from Kenya," 2017 Annual Meeting, July 30-August 1, Chicago, Illinois 258093, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    17. Mugizi, Francisco M.P. & Matsumoto, Tomoya, 2020. "Population pressure and soil quality in Sub-Saharan Africa: Panel evidence from Kenya," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 94(C).
    18. Vimefall, Elin, 2015. "Income diversification among female-headed farming households," Working Papers 2015:11, Örebro University, School of Business.
    19. Corsi, Alessandro & Salvioni, Cristina, 2017. "Once part-timer always part-timer? Causes for persistence in off farm work state of farmers," Bio-based and Applied Economics Journal, Italian Association of Agricultural and Applied Economics (AIEAA), vol. 6(2), September.
    20. Almeida, Alexandre N. & Bravo-Ureta, Boris E., 2019. "Agricultural productivity, shadow wages and off-farm labor decisions in Nicaragua," Economic Systems, Elsevier, vol. 43(1), pages 99-110.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Agricultural and Food Policy; Farm Management; International Development; Labor and Human Capital;
    All these keywords.

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ags:aaea13:150638. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: AgEcon Search (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aaeaaea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.