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Smallholder Agricultural Commercialization and Poverty: Empirical Evidence of Panel Data from Kenya

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  • Muricho, Geoffrey
  • Manda, Damiano
  • Sule, Fredrick
  • Kassie, Menale

Abstract

Despite inconclusive evidence of the impact of agricultural commercialization on smallholder welfare, many developing countries with majority of their population engaged in smallholder agriculture continue to pursue this agricultural transformation process. Past empirical studies have been criticized for methodological flaws and where real negative evidence existed, then this has been attributed to policy failures rather than commercialization process per se. Using panel data collected from Kenya, this study fits an endogenous switching regression model in a correlated random effects framework to analyze impacts of agricultural commercialization on household poverty proxied by annual household per capita expenditure on food and non-food items including own produced and consumed crops and livestock products. The results show that agricultural commercialization significantly increases annual per capita household expenditure among commercialized and non-commercialized had they commercialized. The annual per capita expenditure gap existing between commercialized and non-commercialized households emanates from their differences in amounts of resources owned (57%) and efficiency of using these resources (43%). Closing this expenditure gap (poverty gap) require improving the amount of resources owned and resource use efficiency among non-commercialized households. Therefore, policy options geared toward stimulating and/or enhancing smallholder agricultural commercialization are encourages as a poverty reduction strategy.

Suggested Citation

  • Muricho, Geoffrey & Manda, Damiano & Sule, Fredrick & Kassie, Menale, 2017. "Smallholder Agricultural Commercialization and Poverty: Empirical Evidence of Panel Data from Kenya," 91st Annual Conference, April 24-26, 2017, Royal Dublin Society, Dublin, Ireland 258618, Agricultural Economics Society.
    • Handle: RePEc:ags:aesc17:258618
    DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.258618
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    Cited by:

    1. Ogutu, Sylvester Ochieng & Qaim, Matin, 2019. "Commercialization of the small farm sector and multidimensional poverty," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 114(C), pages 281-293.
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    3. Amrita Saha & Rachel Sabates-Wheeler & John Thompson, 2022. "Insights into smallholder capacity for agricultural commercialisation: Evidence from four African contexts," The European Journal of Development Research, Palgrave Macmillan;European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes (EADI), vol. 34(4), pages 1757-1802, August.
    4. Minot, Nicholas & Warner, James & Dejene, Samson & Zewdie, Tadiwos, 2021. "Agricultural Commercialization in Ethiopia: Results from the Analysis of Panel Household Data," 2021 Conference, August 17-31, 2021, Virtual 315314, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    5. Sylvester O. Ogutu & Matin Qaim, 2018. "Commercialization of the small farm sector and multidimensional poverty," GlobalFood Discussion Papers 269561, Georg-August-Universitaet Goettingen, GlobalFood, Department of Agricultural Economics and Rural Development.

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    Keywords

    Agribusiness; Agricultural and Food Policy; Community/Rural/Urban Development;
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