Social norms, markets and land use in a developing country context

This dissertation presents three studies related to the processes of agricultural technology adoption, the development of land markets in the presence of social norms, and smallholder land use amid price uncertainty. The analysis presented in this dissertation focuses on two countries: Malawi and Ghana. In chapter two, I analyze constraints to the adoption of soil fertility management (SFM) practices among small farmers. Though problems related to low and declining soil fertility continue to impede agricultural production and food security in Sub-Saharan Africa, smallholder farmers in this region have shown reluctance to adopt widely-promoted practices to conserve or enhance soil fertility. Employing a choice-based experiment, I examine constraints to the adoption of soil fertility management (SFM) practices and explore how smallholder perceptions of recent trends in temperature and rainfall relate to their stated preferences for specific SFM practices. I find that farmers’ lack of liquidity and inadequate technical knowledge about the specifics of SFM practices continue to hamper SFM adoption and that smallholder farmers’ perceptions of temperature and rainfall variability affect their choice of cropping practice (a key component of SFM) as well as their reluctance to deploy SFM technical knowledge. The results suggest that smallholders are more likely to implement complimentary SFM practices, such as cultivating soil nitrogen-fixing trees or crops, when they acquire improved access to mineral fertilizers as well as basic-level technical training. Considering the findings, policy interventions designed to increase adoption of SFM practices are more likely to succeed when interventions also provide farmers with inputs perceived as complementary to SFM, including mineral fertilizer, and when interventions directly address farmers’ perceptions of climatic variability. In chapter three, I test whether social norms related to fairness constrain land rental rates. Using detailed qualitative, quantitative, and experimental data on inequity averse preferences and fairness norms, and land market participation from Malawi, I document the role of fairness norms in the land rental market. I show that these fairness norms map onto observed outcomes in land rental markets, reducing the range in village-level rental rates by increasing the minimal accepted rate and reducing the maximum accepted rate. The results indicate that village-level inequity aversion may be working to protect the poorer party in the transaction. The presence of these norms may reduce the quality of land available for rent and limit the scope of the land market to adjust rental rates to weather shocks. Finally, in chapter four, I analyze the effects of stabilizing perennial cash crop prices when the prices of staple food crops also cultivated by small farmers remain highly variable. Specifically, I test whether maize price variability affects household cultivated acreage. I use nationally representative household panel data from Ghana to establish that an increase in food crop price variability in the previous year increases households’ total cultivated acreage. The increase in cropped area is largely due to an increase in households’ cultivated acreage of cocoa – a perennial cash crop with a guaranteed price fixed annually by the Ghanaian government. To establish the effects of this household cultivated crop area expansion on forest loss, I construct district-level panel data on annual forest loss and maize price variability from 2007 to 2018 across Ghana’s forest belt. The results indicate that approximately 0.50 percent of forested area in Ghana is lost annually for every one percent increase in the price variability of staple crop prices in the previous year. My results establish that staple crop price variability leads to forest loss in Ghana through the channel of the increased cultivation of cocoa.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Agricultural & Applied Econ

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2022

Author dc:creator

• Krah, Kwabena

Contributors dc:contributor

• Michelson, Hope
• Winter-Nelson, Alex
• Baylis, Kathy
• Maertens, Annemie

• Social norms, Land markets, Adoption, Land use, Price variability, Forest loss

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2021 Kwabena Krah

Language dc:language

en

Handle dc:identifier

http://hdl.handle.net/2142/113117

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/113117