Heterogeneity of Agricultural Land Use Systems and Poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa: Relationship and Evidence from Rural Nigeria

Abstract

Several factors influencing rural-poverty in sub-Saharan-Africa, for all the factors, agricultural-land access/management and “culture of poverty” are quite dominant in literature. This study examines socio-cultural/economic factors influencing poverty and establishes linkages of heterogeneity of land-use systems. Farm-level cost–route surveys of cross-sectional national-data of 800 respondents were used for analysis. Data were analyzed by descriptive-statistics, trans-logarithmic model, and poverty-measures. Descriptive statistics depict land-ownership structure, farmer’s socio-cultural practices, and exploits of government intervention programs influenced agricultural-poverty. Trans-logarithmic coefficients results of short-run sustainability-index (SRSI), land-policy intervention variables and household-sizes are dominance factors. Also, SRSI indicated 0.69, suggesting that 69% of the farmers made unsustainable use of agricultural-land. Moreover, 92% of extremely poor respondents with large household-sizes (61.2%) seek their agricultural-land ownership by rentage, while those with land-titled documents constitute 78.6% of the non-poor. Public-policy interventions must take into account formalization of land-property rights in order to facilitate its transferability and boosting investment.