Rural Development Policies and Sustainable Land Use in the ...

90 CHAPTER 5
productivity. 62 Increased land ownership is
predicted to have little impact on income
per capita, consistent with our earlier finding
in Chapter 4 that land access per se is not
the most important determinant of poverty.
Machinery and Equipment Owned
Increased ownership of machinery and
equipment is predicted to reduce use of
zero/minimum tillage and herbicides slightly,
while increasing hiring of wage labor significantly
(elasticity = 0.10) with a concomitant
decrease in the use of family labor. Higher
endowments of machinery and equipment
also lead to a slight increase in perennial
crop productivity, and increase income per
capita significantly (elasticity = 0.13). As
noted earlier, investment in machinery and
equipment appears to be most profitable
for households pursing the basic grains/
farmworker and coffee production livelihood
strategies.
Livestock Owned
Promotion of livestock keeping is predicted
to reduce use of inorganic fertilizer slightly,
but to increase use of insecticides significantly.
Increased livestock ownership is predicted
to lead to more use of hired labor and
slightly less family labor in crop production,
and higher perennial crop yields, perhaps
as a result of greater availability of manure
and hence greater soil fertility. However,
this result may also be a reflection of reverse
causality (e.g., households with more
productive coffee gardens are better able to
afford livestock).
Education
An increase in education levels is predicted
to reduce use of no burning, increase use of
inorganic fertilizer slightly, and increase the
value of perennial crop yields substantially
(elasticity of direct impact = 0.34), controlling
for use of land management practices
and inputs (partial effect of education). However,
the total predicted impact of increased
education on perennial crop production is
much less than this (elasticity of total impact
= 0.13), in part because education
reduces use of labor intensive practices. Increased
education has a quantitatively small
(and statistically insignificant) predicted impact
on income per capita (elasticity = 0.04).
Because education can reduce labor availability
in the near term and has limited
impacts on most livelihood strategies and
agricultural productivity in our results, its
impacts on income per capita are predicted
to be limited, at least in the near term.
Overall, these results suggest that improved
access to road infrastructure and
markets, and investments in some types of
household endowments such as education,
can promote intensification of land management
and increased agricultural productivity,
at least in perennial crop production. Improving
annual crop productivity appears to
be more difficult, as does improving overall
income per capita.
Population Density
Higher population density would be associated
with lower probability of households
choosing the coffee production or basic
grains/livestock/farmworker livelihood
strategies, and higher probability of basic
grains production. Coffee production is
particularly discouraged by higher population
density (elasticity of –0.55) while basic
grains production is encouraged (elasticity
of 0.48). Thus, the subsistence basic grains
livelihood strategy is a more dominant livelihood
strategy in more densely populated
settings. Increased population density is
predicted to reduce incorporation of crop
residues, but has limited impacts on other
land management practices (controlling
for farm size, labor endowment, and other
household-level factors). Increased use of
62
Although reallocating land from large to smallholders would tend to reduce the yields of smallholders, this
would increase average yields because smallholders’ yields are substantially larger than those of large landholders.