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

70 CHAPTER 5
more livestock focus more on livestock production
and farm their crops less intensively.
None of the human capital variables
have a statistically significant (at 5 percent
level) impact on fertilizer use, though education
has a weakly significant (10 percent
level) positive impact, similar to the findings
by Nkonya et al. (2004) and others in
Africa. More educated households may be
more aware of the benefits of fertilizer use
and its correct application, or better able to
finance its purchase.
Fertilizer use is more likely in areas of
higher road density and on parcels closer to
a road. These results are consistent with our
expectation that better market access facilitates
use of such external inputs and is in
agreement with findings for other countries
(e.g., Uganda; see Nkonya et al. 2004). Fertilizer
use is also greater in more densely
populated areas. This is consistent with
Boserup’s (1965) theory of population induced
intensification, as population pressure
makes it difficult to restore soil fertility
though long fallow periods.
Not surprisingly, participants in agricultural
extension programs and NGO programs
are more likely to use fertilizer. Participants
in agricultural training programs are less
likely to use fertilizer. As noted earlier, such
programs appear to be more focused on
livestock production than crop production.
Interestingly, fertilizer is more likely to
be used on leased-in plots than on owneroperated
plots. This may be because shortterm
tenants lack incentive to use fallow or
manure as soil fertility management measures
because these involve a greater element
of investment, requiring a period of
several years to yield their full returns. In
addition, cash tenants have to earn sufficient
income from the plot to be able to cover
the rental cost of the land, whereas owneroperators
may feel less pressure to farm as
intensively. Even sharecroppers may farm
leased-in land more intensively than landlords
farm their own plots because of the
transaction costs of monitoring the tenant,
which require that higher yields be attained
on leased land to offset such costs (Pender
and Fafchamps 2001).
Herbicides
We find no strong statistically significant
(at 5 percent level) effect of livelihood
strategies on use of herbicides, but households
pursuing the basic grains/livestock/
farmworker livelihood strategy are somewhat
more likely than basic grains farmers
to use herbicides (weakly significant at 10
percent level). This may reflect higher labor
opportunity costs of this group of farmers
relative to basic grains farmers and/or their
greater ability to finance herbicide purchases.
Herbicides are less likely to be used at
higher elevation and where moisture deficits
are greater, but more likely to be used where
soils are more fertile. Weeds may not grow
as well at higher elevation or where there
are moisture deficits, but may be more of a
problem in more fertile soils. 51
Surprisingly, farmers who own more
titled land are less likely to use herbicides.
Herbicides are also found to be less likely
to be used on perennial crops. The negative
effect of land title may relate to credit
access—by increasing access to credit, land
titles may promote nonfarm activities rather
than increased investments in agricultural
inputs. Consistent with this, we find later
that some types of agricultural labor use are
less for households that have a larger share
of titled land. In contrast to the negative association
of share of land title at the household
level with herbicide use, we find that
herbicides are more likely to be applied to
fully titled plots than to plots under usufruct
ownership. This effect was not expected for
herbicides, which are a short-term input
rather than an investment.
51
Some weeds thrive in low fertility soils, however. For example, striga is a common problem in nitrogen-deficient
soils.