The Institute of Development Studies and Partner Organisations
Browse

Revisiting the Farm Size-Productivity Relationship Based on a Relatively Wide Range of Farm Sizes: Evidence from Kenya

Download (220.43 kB)
journal contribution
posted on 2024-09-05, 21:25 authored by Milu Muyanga, T.S. Jayne
This paper revisits the inverse farm size-productivity relationship in Kenya. The study makes two contributions. First, the relationship is examined over a much wider range of farm sizes than most studies, which is particularly relevant in Africa given the recent rise of medium- and large-scale farms. Second, we test the inverse relationship hypothesis using three different measures of productivity including profits per hectare and total factor productivity, which are arguably more meaningful than standard measures of productivity such as yield or gross output per hectare. We find a U-shaped relationship between farm size and all three measures of farm productivity. The inverse relationship hypothesis holds on farms between zero and 3 hectares. The relationship between farm size and productivity is relatively flat between 3 and 5 hectares. A strong positive relationship between farm size and productivity emerges within the 5 to 70 hectare range of farm sizes. Across virtually all measures of productivity, farms between 20 and 70 hectares are found to be substantially more productive than farms under 5 hectares. When the analysis is confined to fields cultivated to maize (Kenya's main food crop) the productivity advantage of relatively large farms stems at least partially from differences in technical choice related to mechanization, which substantially reduces labor input per hectare, and from input use intensity.

Funding

Department for International Development, UK Government

History

Publisher

Oxford University Press

Citation

Muyanga, M. and Jayne, T.S. (2019) Revisiting the Farm Size-Productivity Relationship Based on a Relatively Wide Range of Farm Sizes: Evidence from Kenya. American Journal of Agricultural Economics, 101(4): 1140-1163, DOI: 10.1093/ajae/aaz003

Version

  • VoR (Version of Record)

IDS Item Types

Article

Copyright holder

© The Author(s) 2019. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association

Country

Kenya

Language

en

IDS team

Rural Futures

Project identifier

APRA::e1f6d3be-457a-4f13-8b1f-6748d1402d83::600

Usage metrics

    Future Agricultures Consortium

    Categories

    No categories selected

    Exports

    RefWorks
    BibTeX
    Ref. manager
    Endnote
    DataCite
    NLM
    DC