Production Relations in Semi‐Arid African Agriculture

Binswanger, Hans P.; McIntire, John M.; Udry, Chris

doi:10.1093/0198287623.003.0006

Cited by 28 publications

(24 citation statements)

References 199 publications

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“…This model captures, in a stylized fashion, the salient features of village communities in the West African semi-arid tropics (WASAT) as they have been described in Binswanger and McIntire (1987), Bromley and Chavas (1989), and Binswanger, McIntire and Udry (1989).…”

Section: A Model Of Livestock As Buffer Stockmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Drought and Saving in West Africa: Are Livestock a Buffer Stock?

Fafchamps

Udry²,

Czukas

1998

SSRN Journal

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Households in the west African semi-arid tropics, as in much of the developing world, face substantial risk --an inevitable consequence of engaging in rainfed agriculture in a drought-prone environment. It has long been hypothesized that these households keep livestock as a buffer stock to insulate their consumption from fluctuations in income. This paper has the simple goal of testing that hypothesis. Our results indicate that livestock transactions play less of a consumption smoothing role than is often assumed. Livestock sales compensate for at most thirty percent, and probably closer to twenty percent of income shortfalls due to village-level shocks alone. We discuss possible explanations for these results and suggest directions for future work.

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Section: A Model Of Livestock As Buffer Stockmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Together they account for most of liquid wealth in the hands of WASAT small farmers (Udry (1993);Binswanger, McIntire, and Udry (1989);Swinton (1988)). 4 The most important portfolio effects are thus those that oppose grain storage to livestock.…”

Section: A Model Of Livestock As Buffer Stockmentioning

confidence: 99%

Drought and Saving in West Africa: Are Livestock a Buffer Stock?

Fafchamps

Udry²,

Czukas

1998

SSRN Journal

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“…Research on underlying causes of unsustainable land management in drylands has included: broad diagnostic assessments (Binswanger et al 1989); studies of property rights and collective action in both sedentary and pastoral systems (Agrawal 2001;Place and Hazell 1993); encroachment by external interests (Lane 1998); population pressure and poverty (Grepperud 1996;Pender et al 2001;Templeton and Scherr 1999;Tiffen et al 1994); drought as a driver and trigger of desertification (Dregne 2000); access to markets and infrastructure (Binswanger and McIntire 1987;Pender et al 2006); economic returns to conservation practices (Cramb et al 2000;Gautam and Anderson 1999;Holden 1998, 2001); extension approaches (Cramb et al 2000;Clay et al 1998); factor market imperfections Krishna 2002;Pender and Kerr 1998); social capital (Antle et al 2006); and irreversibility thresholds (Bauer and Stringer 2008). Despite the excellence of much of this research, its disciplinary focus has often resulted in promotion of interventions that have not been widely adopted (Sietz et al 2011).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

An integrated agro-ecosystem and livelihood systems approach for the poor and vulnerable in dry areas

et al. 2013

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More than 400 million people in the developing world depend on dryland agriculture for their livelihoods. Dryland agriculture involves a complex combination of productive components: staple crops, vegetables, livestock, trees and fish interacting principally with rangeland, cultivated areas and watercourses. Managing risk and enhancing productivity through diversification and sustainable intensification is critical to securing and improving rural livelihoods. The main biophysical constraints are natural resource limitations and degradation, particularly water scarcity and encroaching desertification. Social and economic limitations, such as poor access to markets and inputs, weak governance and lack of information about alternative production technologies also limit the options available to farmers. Past efforts to address these constraints by focusing on individual components have either not been successful or are now facing a declining rate of impact, indicating the need for new integrated approaches to research for development of dryland systems. This article outlines the characteristics of such an approach, integrating agro-ecosystem and livelihoods approaches and presents a range of empirical examples of its application in dryland contexts. The authors draw attention to new insights about the design of research required to accelerate impact by integrating across disciplines and scales.

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“…Agricultural insurance has often been funded by Governments as doubts have been raised about its efficacy in the face of covariance of risks and the problems of asymmetry of information that are prevalent in developing agriculture [8,9,10,11]. The doubts give rise to the twin problems of opportunistic behaviour, namely adverse selection and moral hazard in insurance that could be expensive to control [12,13].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Econometric analysis of the impact of agricultural insurance of farming systems in the middle belt, Nigeria.

Olubiyo¹,

Hill²,

Webster³

2009

African Journal of Food, Agriculture, Nutrition and Development

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Agriculture continues to dominate economic development policy in many developing countries. This is hardly surprising given the high proportion of the population of such countries that derive their livelihood from agriculture and related activities. What is surprising in many of the countries is the failure of the policy to deliver the sustained supplies of food and industrial raw materials as intended. In part this may have occurred because they failed to address the inability of the peasant farmers to withstand the increased risks associated with the adoption of commercial farming practices. Agricultural insurance is seen as one of the best strategies to address farm risks and encourage farmers to embrace modern production practices with greater potential for better and quality yields. In Nigeria, the Government introduced agricultural insurance programme with the tripartite aim of broadening farmers' access to farm resources, positively changing farmers' attitude to risk in their choice of resource use and to achieve increased food supplies in the market. Different factors can be identified that influence farmers' behaviour especially making decisions that relate to farm production, vis-à-vis choice of enterprise, its combination, the type and level of resources used in a given farming season. This study was carried out to examine whether agricultural insurance exerted any significant influence on the farming practices in the country. This study tests the broad hypothesis that farmers who purchase insurance increase their exposure to risk by adopting modern farming practices and achieved increase in resource productivity. The study found that the sampled farmers differ in their use of farm resources and the level of output produced. A higher proportion of insured farmers applied improved farming practices and were more commercially oriented. The insured farmers ventured into more risky enterprises and released a greater proportion of their output to the market for sale. However, contrary to expectations, uninsured farmers were found to be more productive and efficient in their resource use than the insured farmers.

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Production Relations in Semi‐Arid African Agriculture

Cited by 28 publications

References 199 publications

Drought and Saving in West Africa: Are Livestock a Buffer Stock?

Drought and Saving in West Africa: Are Livestock a Buffer Stock?

An integrated agro-ecosystem and livelihood systems approach for the poor and vulnerable in dry areas

Econometric analysis of the impact of agricultural insurance of farming systems in the middle belt, Nigeria.

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