Abstract
AbstractCattle may have become under‐appreciated as a means of boosting staple crop production in areas of recurrent food insecurity. This study tests number of cattle owned as a determinant (alongside agronomic and socio‐economic control variables) of land and labour productivity for hybrid and local maize, and for all crops aggregated by value, from a cross‐sectional sample of 266 small and medium‐sized farms in Zambia's Southern Province. For all tested derivations of productivity, cattle ownership scores strongly as a determinant—more so than, for example, fertiliser application. The strong effect on land productivity (as robust as the expected effect on labour productivity) is ascribed to cattle owners' ability to optimally time ploughing and planting vis‐à‐vis the onset of rains. Cattle re‐stocking thus appears to be an under‐utilised tool of agricultural development. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
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