When: 6 November 2018, 10-11 AM EST
Presenter: Jordan Chamberlin, International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT)
Q&A Panelist and Study Co-author: Thomas Jayne (Michigan State University)
Moderator: Frank Place, CGIAR Research Program on Policies, Institutions, and Markets (PIM)
See related blog from CIMMYT: New publications: Does farm structure matter?
Land acquisitions by foreign and local investor farmers has generated much speculation about the impacts on smallholder households and rural communities. The study that will be presented in this webinar addresses these issues by exploiting inter-district variation in farmland distribution patterns in Tanzania to determine the impact of localized farm structure on rural household incomes using three rounds of panel data from the Tanzanian National Panel Survey (2009, 2011 and 2013). Because farm structure is a multifaceted concept, five alternative indicators of farm structure are used in the analysis, including (i) the Gini coefficient; (ii) skewness; (iii) coefficient of variation; (iv) share of controlled farmland under medium-scale farms; and (v) share of controlled farmland under large farms. The study highlights four main findings. First, most indicators of farmland concentration are positively associated with rural household incomes, after controlling for other factors. Second, household incomes from farm, agricultural wage and non-farm sources are positively and significantly associated with the share of land in the district controlled by 5-10-hectare farms. Third, these positive spillover benefits are smaller and less statistically significant in districts with a relatively high share of farmland controlled by farms over 10 hectares in size. Fourth, poor rural households are least able to capture the positive spillovers generated by medium-scale farms and by concentrated farmland patterns.
Presenter
Jordan Chamberlin is currently a Spatial Economist at International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT). He was formerly an Assistant Professor, International Development, and a member of AFRE’s (MSU’s Department of Agricultural, Food, and Resource Economics) Food Security Group. He joined the AFRE faculty in May 2013 and was on long-term assignment in Lusaka, Zambia with the Indaba Agricultural Policy Research Institute (IAPRI), formerly the Food Security Research Project. He conducted collaborative research and training on microeconomic analysis of smallholder livelihoods in Zambia and elsewhere in sub-Saharan Africa.
Jordan began his work in rural development as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Paraguay, where he worked with beekeepers in Canindeyú Department. Prior to coming to Michigan State, he was a Scientist with the International Food Policy Research Institute, based in Ethiopia. Read more>>
Q&A Panelist and Study Co-author
Thomas Jayne, University Foundation Professor of Agricultural, Food, and Resource Economics at Michigan State University and Co-Director of the Alliance for African Partnership, a university-wide initiative to promote long-term collaborations with African research and policy organizations. Jayne is a Fellow of the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association (AAEA) and Distinguished Fellow of the African Association of Agricultural Economists. Read more>>
About PIM Webinars
The PIM Webinars aim to share findings of research undertaken as part of the CGIAR Research Program on Policies, Institutions, and Markets (PIM), discuss their application, and get feedback and suggestions from participants. Webinars are conducted by PIM researchers in the form of research seminars. Each webinar is a live event consisting of a presentation (30 min) and a facilitated Q&A session (30 min). Recordings and presentations of the webinars are freely available on the PIM website.
See previous PIM webinars here
Photo credit: USAID/Tanzania
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