Decent rural employment and farm production efficiency: empirical evidence from Tanzania and Ethiopia

Abstract

Promoting decent rural employment, by creating new jobs in rural areas and upgrading the existing ones, could be one of the most efficient pathways to reduce rural poverty. This article systematically investigates the impact of decent rural employment on agricultural production efficiency in Ethiopia and Tanzania. The analysis applies an output-oriented distance function approach with an estimation procedure that accounts for different technological, demographic, socioeconomic, institutional, and decent rural employment indicators. Data of the 2011 round of Living Standards Measurement Study-Integrated Surveys on Agriculture for the two countries are used, and a set of indicators is derived to proxy core dimensions of decent rural employment. The findings of our analysis show that decent rural employment contributes to agricultural production efficiency.JEL classifications: D13, D24, J08, J24, J28

Smallholder participation in vegetable exports and age‐disaggregated labor allocation in Northern Tanzania

“…Any positive effect on labor demand may thus not translate into higher wages for laborers and rural youth, but rather only into a higher number of employment opportunities. Yet, more decent working conditions are also an important pathway toward rural poverty reduction and livelihoods development (Ayenew et al., ). These agricultural wage labor opportunities may thus not provide sustainable avenues out of poverty for the future of youth .…”

Efficiency estimation and its role in policy recommendations: An application to the Kenyan livestock sector

“…Limited literature has used SFA in livestock production efficiency measurements in Africa (e.g., Ayenew et al, ; Kavoi, Hoag, & Pritchett, ; Kibiego, Lagat, & Bebe, ; Manyeki & Kotosz, ; Masunda & Rudo, ; Ogunniyi, ; Otieno, Hubbard, & Ruto, ). The common feature of the models as they appear in the different studies is similar to the model originally developed by Aigner et al (), which assumes that the inefficiency term follows half‐normal distribution.…”

“…The alternative translog model is not monotonic or globally convex, like the CD model, and imposing the appropriate curvature on it is generally a challenge. However, some scholars prefer TL because of its flexibility and because it does not require a priori restrictions on the technologies to be estimated (e.g., Alvarez & del Corral, ; Ayenew et al, ; Otieno et al, ). To avoid the problem of model specification, we considered the two functional forms and assumed that the deterministic part f ( X i ; β ) takes the log‐linear, expressed as: where Y i is the output of producer i , X i is a vector of inputs used by producer i and X i ~ IIDN ( μ , Σ x ) and β i is a vector of the technology parameters to be estimated.…”

“…There are limited studies on livestock efficiency measurement in Africa. They include the study by Ayenew, Estruch, Sauer, Abate‐Kassa, Schickram, and Wobst (), who systematically investigated the impact of decent rural employment on agricultural production efficiency in Ethiopia and Tanzania and found that decent rural employment contributes to agricultural production efficiency. Another study by Omondi, Rao, Karimov, and Baltenweck () aimed at providing evidence on the effects of different types of linkages between smallholder dairy farmers and large processors through dairy hubs.…”

Inefficiency of manual weeding in rainfed rice systems affected by parasitic weeds

“…For instance, a study by Ayenew et al. () showed that literate smallholder farmers are more likely to be technically efficient in agriculture than their illiterate counterparts. Sherlund et al.…”