Informal Land Markets in Rice Production in Ethiopia

This thesis analyzes the factors that affect choice of sharecropping and the differences in inputs and output intensities between owned and sharecropped land. The analysis is based on the responses of randomly selected 120 farm households in Fogera district. We considered 398 plots cultivated by the sample households whereby a multinomial logistic regression model was employed. The results show that the decision to share-in land is positively related to the relative size of adult family labor to land while negatively related to age of household head, female headship and the perceived value of a plot. The decision to share-out land is positively related to female headship and credit access but it is negatively related to oxen ownership, absence of disable adult family labor and the perceived value of a plot. These results have also some implications on Marshallian arguments against sharecropping, which state that sharecropping is inefficient as compared to fixed rent. In this regard, our analysis which compares sharecropping with other forms of arrangement with respect to three major inputs (labor, draft power, and seed) doesn't support the Marshallian argument.

Autorentext

Economic growth, employment and basic survival of the majority of the population in Ethiopia depend on the productive efficiency of the agricultural sector. In Ethiopia, improvement in land productivity is vital to enhance and sustain the welfare of the largely agrarian population.