Title: Off-farm Work and Farm Production Decisions: Evidence from Maize-Producing Households in Rural Kenya *
Abstract: This paper explores the extent to which off-farm work affects farm production decisions through reinvestment in farm input use and intensification. We estimate farm input demand functions for fertilizer and impoved seed for maize producing households in Kenya. The results indicate differences in off-farm work effects across different inputs and off-farm activity types. While the results suggests possible use of off-farm earnings for input purchase especially for those without other forms of credit, the ‘fertilizer/seed package’ may represent a substantially greater commitment of money and orientation, to which those households with higher off-farm earnings may be unwilling to invest. Thus engagement in off-farm work may allow some partial intensification but may compete with farming at higher levels. We find that the presence of a regular source of earnings in form of a salaried wage or pension seems to be the driving force behind any reinvestment behavior.
Publication Year: 2007
Publication Date: 2007-01-01
Language: en
Type: preprint
Access and Citation
Cited By Count: 17
AI Researcher Chatbot
Get quick answers to your questions about the article from our AI researcher chatbot