Structural Changes in Smallholder Agriculture: A Comparison between Southeast Asia and Sub Saharan Africa

• Applicant: Dr. Priyanka Parvathi, Ph.D.
• Subject Area: Agricultural Economics, Agricultural Policy, Agricultural Sociology
• Term: from 2017 to 2018
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 392933254

• Final Report Year: 2018

Final Report Abstract

The aim of this research visit was to understand the processes and patterns in agriculture that signal a structural change at the micro-level. The first key finding was that as investments in agriculture increases, more and more farm labour engage in off-farm activities reducing the labour share employed in agriculture. The second major finding is that, this increased in agriculture is a result of economic development in the Southeast Asian countries of Thailand and Vietnam that has pulled rural smallholder farmers to diversify into off-arm activities and transformed them as part-time farmers. These part-time farmers invest their off-farm earnings in agriculture leading to increased productivity and yields. However, contrary to developed countries we do not find consolidation of small farms into large farms in Southeast Asia. The third critical learning that African farmers in Uganda and Malawi can take home from rural smallholders in SEA is that, they need to diversify into high value crop farming as well as livestock and invest more in mechanization processes to accelerate agricultural transformation. The above mentioned three important findings in the context of micro-scale agricultural transforamtion in developing countries have been presented in three major conferences.

Publications

• (2017). Infusing Growth: Rural Agricultural Investments and its Impact on Agrarian Development in Northeast Thailand. ReSAKSS-Asia Conference 2017, Bangkok, December 12-13
  Priyanka Parvathi, Rattiya Suddeephong Lippe and Hermann Waibel
  
• (2018): Can agricultural investments be increased by off-farm employment? A microperspective on agricultural transformation in Southeast Asia. Annual World Bank Conference on Disruptive Innovations, Value Chain and Rural Development 2018, Washington DC, USA, June 12-15
  Priyanka Parvathi, Trung Thanh Nguyen, Ulrike Grote and Hermann Waibel
  
• (2018): What African farmers can learn from rural smallholders in Southeast Asia? Micro insights on the pathways to agricultural transformation. Annual World Bank Conference on Disruptive Innovations, Value Chain and Rural Development 2018, Washington DC, USA, June 12-15
  Priyanka Parvathi, Mulubrhan Amare, Trung Thanh Nguyen and Christopher B. Barrett