Farmland Allocation Research Articles

Interregional compensation for farmland protection: From the perspective of farmland allocation optimization

Interregional compensation for farmland protection: From the perspective of farmland allocation optimization

Frustration–Aggression Nexus in Framing the Expanding Banditry Economy in Northwest Nigeria: Evidence From Communal-Level Perception in Zamfara State, 2011–2024

Recent studies on armed banditry in Zamfara have commented on climate change, weak security infrastructure, and setbacks in socio-economic developments. The communal-level issues in the threat such as farmland allocation, vigilantism, and local intelligence provision have largely remained understudied. This study exploits the gap to explain armed banditry. A mixed method of data collection and qualitative descriptive method of data analysis were adopted. Using frustration–aggression analysis as explanatory tool, the paper concludes that wholesale farmland transaction, rudimentary communal vigilantism, and bandits’ concealed alliance formation with some traditional leaders for intelligence and benefits sharing are key factors that aided banditry. Tackling these three basic communal-level banditry nuances requires absolute political will to re-assess and implement the extant policies on grazing reserves and pastoralist mobility.

Will farmland renting out boost rural households’ income? Evidence from China’s rural areas

ABSTRACT This paper estimates the effect of renting out farmland on rural households’ income through a difference-in-differences (DID) approach, using data from China Family Panel Studies (CFPS). Our findings support the income growth effect of farmland renting out, which is confirmed by a series of robustness tests. Additionally, the mechanism tests indicate that both the farmland rental income proportion in the total income and the rural household members’ probability of non-farm work significantly increase after farmers rent out their farmland. Our study helps to explore the market-based allocation of farmland and provides Chinese evidence and reference for the reform of rural land systems in emerging economies.

Typification and differentiation of smallholder dairy production systems in smallholder mixed farming in the highlands of southern Ethiopia.

The present study aimed to classify smallholder dairy production systems by analyzing land allocation for various crop types and characterizing them based on integration with specific crops which is gap in earlier studies. A total of 360 smallholder farmers were interviewed to generate firsthand information in addition to using secondary data sources. The classification utilized K-means clustering, while discriminant analysis was applied to accentuate the distinct characteristics of dairy production systems (DPSs). Subsequently, for a particular crop to be considered dominant, the minimum farmland allocation had to exceed 30%. Based on this, the 360 respondent farmers in the study areas were categorized into four distinct DPSs: diversified crop-based (DCB) at 31%, enset-based (EB) at 28%, cereal-based (CB) at 24% and cash crop-based (CCB) with coffee, khat, vegetables, fruits, and sugarcane accounting for 17%. Within the CCB dairy production system, where cash crops were cultivated most dominantly, averaging 56% of the farmland, farmers reported the highest annual income and, consequently, acquired more improved dairy cows, facilitating their entry into intensive dairy production. Ownership of improved dairy cattle breeds, use of agro-industrial byproducts as feed, practicing stall feeding and better housing are observed practices in this DPS that relate to the intensification of dairy production. This positive relationship was observed between the commercialization of crops and the intensification of dairy production in the CCB dairy production system. In the EB dairy system, enset dominates with a 33% area share, leading to increased residues for cattle feed. They keep large herds of local cattle, limited crossbreeding experience, and prefer conventional feeding. The CB system allocates 47% of land to cereals, justifying cereal residues as primary dairy feed. Cultivating grasses like Pennisetum pedicellatum and Phalaris arundinacea is also highly valued in the system. The DCB system, with diverse crops (none exceeding 30%), implies varied residues for dairy feed. These findings reveal unique characteristics across dairy systems, indicating a positive correlation between crop commercialization and dairy intensification. Hence, understanding each type of DPS and its characteristics will help development experts or those in charge of designing agricultural policy to establish the best strategic plans for enhancing the productivity of dairy cattle under smallholder conditions.

Optimization of Agricultural Resource Allocation among Crops: A Portfolio Model Analysis

The portfolio model provides a new framework that enables farmers to make tradeoffs between the returns and risks of agricultural production. However, it has only been used in cost allocation among resources and in farmland allocation among crops at present. Thus, we conducted a portfolio model analysis based on an independent, mixed cross-section of data accounting for 1650 rural households in Minqin county, China, over a timescale of three years; the goal was to explore the feasibility and actuating extent of the portfolio model in optimizing the allocation of agricultural resources among crops other than farmland. The results showed that, by optimizing resource allocation among crops using a portfolio model, the return per unit resource of farmland, water, and labor increased by CNY 4.03 thousand per hectare, CNY 0.38 per cubic meter, and CNY 39.75 per day, without increasing risk, and with corresponding increases in use efficiency of 14.64%, 9.25%, and 13.55%, respectively, in the study area. Therefore, the portfolio model is a good tool for agricultural resource allocation optimization. Policy makers can manage agricultural resources according to their risk preference using this model. This study provides new insights into agricultural resource allocation and critical empirical evidence for return and risk management, as well as resource use efficiency improvement in agricultural production.

Farmland allocation in the conversion from conventional to organic farming

Organic farming enhances food quality and public health, and contributes to a more sustainable environment. Although certified organic farmland grew from 11 to 72.3 million hectares between 1999 and 2019, it constituted only 1.5 percent of the world’s agricultural farmland in 2019. The main impediment to the conversion from conventional to organic farming is the financial difficulties that farmers experience during the transition period in terms of decrease in yield and increase in farming costs owing to transitional practices. Furthermore, uncertainty in crop price and yield may aggravate the adverse effects of transitional practices. This article presents a multi-period optimization model for the allocation of farmland among crops and agricultural practices which allows farmers to plan a transition to organic farming while incurring a bounded shortfall of income. We calibrate our model to represent a grower of corn and soybean in Iowa and, using a seemingly unrelated regression model, crops revenues are simulated and utilized in the numerical experiments. The results show that i) our optimized crop rotation pattern outperforms other policies in the agriculture industry, including monoculture and systematic crop rotation, and that ii) our gradual conversion plan mitigates the chance of profit shortfalls.

An optimization approach of water-food-energy nexus in agro-forestry-livestock system under uncertain water supply

Plantation, forestry, and livestock are inseparably intertwined and constitute the main sectors of the agricultural system. An integrated analysis of energy flow and material conversion processes of the agro-forestry-livestock system is beneficial for achieving sustainable and coordinated agricultural development. The availability of water resources is sensitive to climatic conditions and human activities, and uncoordinated water allocation affects the combined efficiency of various agricultural sectors. Therefore, an integrated modeling framework, based on the water-energy-food nexus under water supply uncertainty, is developed to maximize the performance of agro-forestry-livestock system. The advantages of the model include (1) systematic analysis of energy flow and material conversion processes in farmland, forest land and livestock; (2) consideration of trade-offs between economic benefits, multiple energy use efficiency (biomass, light energy), environmental impacts, and ecological benefits in the system; and (3) rational allocation of farmland, forest land, and livestock resources under the uncertainty of water supply. Empirical frequency analysis was used to obtain different frequencies of water supply. The model framework is based on a multi-objective programming model, which is solved by an affiliation function approach. The model constructs several objective functions, such as economic benefits, bioenergy productivity, light energy use efficiency, ecological economic benefits, and greenhouse gas emissions of the agro-forestry-livestock system. The concordance index was applied to evaluate the integrated performance of the model. The method was applied to Heilongjiang Province in northeastern China, where plantation, forestry, and livestock are predominant. Results show that livestock manure and urine have the highest energy potential, followed by wood, and straw has the lowest energy production. The main contribution to greenhouse gas emissions from the plantation is N2O, and the main contribution from livestock is CH4. The model had a higher concordance index for the larger water supply, but lower crop yield and photosynthetically active radiation. The proposed modeling framework contributes to the generation of stable and coordinated optimization solutions and provides decision makers methods and perspectives for sustainable agriculture.

Untold story of the expanding armed banditry in Nigeria’s Northwest: linking the communal-level collaborators

This study interrogates the often de-emphasised and understudied communal-level dimension of the armed banditry in Nigeria’s Northwest region. Data collection was based on mixed methods and documentary evidence. The study dissects the communal dimension of the expanding armed banditry in Nigeria’s Northwest from three communal-level perspectives, namely (1) wholesale farmland allocation, (2) poor vigilante governance and (3) bandits’ covert alliance with some traditional authorities for intelligence and benefits sharing. It concludes that these underlying communal-linked factors are implicated in the pervasiveness of armed banditry in Nigeria’s Northwest region. The study recommends livestock reformation by implementing all the extant grazing reserves, forestry laws and policies.

The Theoretical Approach and Practice of Farmland Rights System Reform from Decentralization to Centralization Promoting Agricultural Modernization: Evidence from Yuyang District in Shaanxi, China

The Chinese government is attempting to readjust the relationship of farmland rights by farmland rights system reform to optimize the allocation of farmland by market means. Therefore, this study is aimed at exploring the effectiveness of the farmland rights system reform from decentralization to centralization and its impacts on agricultural modernization. In this study, the shift theory of land rights is introduced to analyze the approach of the reform promoting agricultural modernization, and the practice of Yuyang District as evidence illustrates that the reform is a further extension of the land marketization reform, which clears the obstacles of market allocation of farmlands and promotes agricultural modernization by achieving three objectives of agricultural production. The results of this study show the reform is beneficial to a high level of yield, efficient production, and environment friendly in agricultural production, so the reform indirectly promotes agricultural modernization. Meanwhile, Yuyang District’s experiences show that the farmland issue is a complex one, which should be considered from the perspectives of public benefits and private benefits, and appropriate farmland rights system reform is a policy accelerator for facilitating agricultural modernization. Generally, this study not only innovatively links the farmland rights system reform with the three objectives of agricultural production to analysis impact mechanism of the reform on agricultural modernization, but it also confirms the effectiveness of the reform design of the central government and provides some advanced experiences for other regions.

Current Land Tenure and Households’ Preferences to Ownership of Farmland in South East Ethiopia

The current land policy of Ethiopia allows rural population to access farmlands. Nevertheless, households’ preference to state versus private ownership of farmland is an issue of hot debate. This study aimed at assessing the rural households’ preferences to ownership of farmlands in the dominion of the current land tenure in Ethiopia. The study followed mixed methods research design and data were generated by survey of 310 samples between May and Jun, 2019 as well as descriptive and inferential statistics were used for data analysis. Results indicated that the study area experienced small government land allocation, gender and age imbalanced land access with tenure insecurity. Evaluation of the current land tenure showed that 62.6% of the total respondents perceived the current land tenure is inauthentic. Indeed, 65.2% preferred to private ownership of farmland and regression model identified that sex, age, education, farmland size, number of oxen, and sharecropping-out were determinants of households’ preferences to private ownership of farmland. The study revealed that areas practicing insufficient farmland allocation face illicit farmland markets with the state ownership of farmland. Therefore, farming households should be contingent to legal rules for maintaining secured tenure arrangements. The local government offices should work in accordance with legal regulations in managing land tenure arrangements. The national government might review current land tenure ruling with state ownership of land for devising appropriate land ownership systems.

Impact of the market-based allocation of farmland on farmers’ chemical fertilizer input

Impact of the market-based allocation of farmland on farmers’ chemical fertilizer input

Land market distortions and aggregate agricultural productivity: Evidence from Guatemala

Farm size and land allocation are important factors in explaining lagging agricultural productivity in developing countries. This paper examines the effect of land market imperfections on land allocation across farmers and aggregate agricultural productivity. We develop a theoretical framework to model the optimal size distribution of farms and assess to what extent market imperfections can explain non-optimal land allocation and output inefficiency. We measure these distortions for the case of Guatemala using agricultural census microdata. We find that due to land market imperfections aggregate output is 19% below its efficient level for both maize and beans and 31% below for coffee, which are three major crops produced nationwide. We also observe that areas with higher distortions show higher land price dispersion and less active rental markets. The degree of land market distortions across areas co-variate to some extent with road accessibility, ethnicity, and education.

Agriculture’s carbon neutral challenge: The case of Western Australia*

Agriculture is being encouraged to become carbon neutral, and agricultural land is being touted as a source of carbon sequestration. Yet making agricultural regions locally carbon neutral will involve an economic cost, with existing patterns of greenhouse gas emissions and spatial costs of abatement affecting that cost of achieving regional carbon neutrality. This study examines the economic cost of locally achieving carbon neutrality, using the illustration of Western Australia’s agricultural region. The cost to the region of achieving carbon neutrality via reforestation is estimated, as is the spatial allocation of farmland for sequestration. Social and political pressures that likely constrain how much farmland can be reforested are explicitly considered. Findings are subject to a sensitivity analysis and several caveats. The annual cost of regional carbon neutrality via proscribed regional reforestation, under current carbon offset prices, is estimated to range from AUD216 million to AUD250 million (i.e. under 3 per cent of the region’s gross value of agricultural production) which might suggest the challenge to be carbon neutral is within commercial reach. However, without other financial incentives, it likely involves farm business profits being reduced by around 15 per cent.

Agricultural and Forestry Land and Labor Use under Long-Term Climate Change in Chile

The appropriate design of land-use and rural employment policies depends upon the anticipated performance of the farm sector in the context of expected climate changes, especially with respect to land allocations to potential activities. Concerns over the possible net benefits of land-use changes are particularly acute in lower- and middle-income countries, where agriculture tends to be important in employment, income generation and foreign-exchange earnings. This paper presents an analysis of the expected impacts on land use in Chile of projected climate-change scenarios in 2040 and 2070. We developed a farmland allocation model with associated labor employment at the municipal level driven by expected relative net incomes per hectare, constructed from local average per-hectare yields, regional average output prices and per-hectare production cost estimates. The sensitivities of cropland allocations to relative net-income changes were estimated using historical land allocations at the municipal level derived from the last two Chilean Agricultural Censuses. The results show that the impacts of climate changes will be mitigated by land-use adaptation, the main export-earning crops tending to move south; in aggregate, agricultural employment will decrease in all the climate-change scenarios; forestry and agriculture would likely suffer a loss in net-income generation under severe climate-change scenarios.

Estimating the CAP greening effect by machine learning techniques: A big data ex post analysis

Greening payment represents one of the main and controversial novelties of the current Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) 2015–2020 programming period. Such payments bind a portion of farm subsidies to compliance with specified practices, such as crop diversification. Unlike previous ex ante simulations, the present contribution attempts to estimate the ex post impact of greening payments in terms of land use change using a parcel-level constant sample (2011–2017) dataset of approximately 4.5 million observations. First, Markov chains and a weighted χ2 test detect a discontinuity in farmland transition probabilities only in farms that are initially non-compliant with the greening rules. Such a discontinuity is not observed in farms that are not eligible for or already compliant with the greening rules. This evidence, even if indirect, suggests that the greening payment has induced farmland conversion in farms with a lower degree of crop diversification. The greening impact on farmland allocation in this farm group was subsequently simulated using machine learning techniques. This policy has reduced maize monoculture and increased nitrogen-fixing crops, fallow land and other cereals in the targeted farms. Environmental gains (reduction in greenhouse gas emissions –GHG- and input use) and farm economic losses due to land use change have been derived, providing the first tentative cost-benefit analysis of such policy tool. Due to data limitations, indirect costs and benefits of greening (improvement in pest management, land quality and biodiversity) have not been assessed. More research and detailed environmental monitoring data are required to assess such indirect effects and to provide a more comprehensive cost-benefit ex-post analysis of greening policy

Impacts of tenure security and market-oriented allocation of farmland on agricultural productivity: Evidence from China’s apple growers

Whether impacts of tenure insecurity and thin farmland rental markets on agricultural productivity were significant or not was still a key issue that needed to be empirically answered for most developing countries. Thus, the main objectives of this paper were to analyze the influencing mechanisms of tenure security and market-oriented allocation of farmland on agricultural productivity. We collected 762 household-level and 1163 plot-level survey data from China’s apple growers. The results indicated that: (i) agricultural productivity in rented plots was not significantly lower than that in owned plots due to insignificant negative impacts of rented plots on agricultural investment. Further, longer-term farmland rental contract significantly increased yield in rented plots by enhancing agricultural investment; (ii) farmland rental market participation could transfer farmland from low-productivity farmers to high-productivity farmers, and expanding farm size was conducive to increasing the number of agricultural machines input, which improved agricultural productivity. Based on our empirical findings, we suggest that (i) central government should continue to expand and improve the reforms of farmland property rights systems; (ii) long-term farmland rental contract should be encouraged in practice, and relevant laws and regulations should be improved; (iii) the role of rural collective economic organization (RCEO) should be fully employed to reduce execution costs of farmland rental contract; (iv) farmland rental markets should be actively developed, and the costs of agricultural machines input should be reduced.

Investigating the agricultural losses due to climate variability: An application of conditional value-at-risk approach

The agricultural sector is directly affected by climate variables. The presence of climate variability causes a considerable risk to agricultural productivities. Thus, risk management is an alternative to reduce risks, including optimizing the allocation of farmland and choosing crop insurance for a specific planting date. The purpose of this study is to investigate the agricultural risk management through risk measure of climate variability using the Conditional Value-at-Risk (CVaR) in rice production. This paper investigated several possible considerations of agricultural insurance premiums based on losses climate index. We concluded that the climate index insurance policy is the best choice that farmers can choose for each planting date, the higher the significance value considered, the more the value of Value-at-Risk and Conditional Value-at-Risk.

Governing the coexistence of agricultural models: French cities allocating farmlands to support agroecology and short food chains on urban fringes

This paper deals with the coexistence of agricultural models from the perspective of land management on the urban fringe. Our goal is to show how urban local authorities deal with and influence the coexistence of models when they are involved in farmland management, and more specifically when they determine which farmer should be allocated what land and under which lease agreement. To do this, we compare public processes of farmland allocation led by French local authorities on the urban fringes of Lyon, Montpellier, and Perpignan. This geographic study is based on qualitative methods (observations, interviews, and document analysis). The comparison of seven case studies illustrates the changing balances of power on urban fringes between agricultural models and between urban and agricultural stakeholders. As urban local authorities grant them land and legitimacy, farmers willing to develop agroecology and short food supply chains may settle in peri-urban areas, where access to land is otherwise very difficult for outsiders. Some public allocations of farmland divide space between models following agronomic and esthetic criteria, but few public bodies venture to hierarchize models by an unequal repartition of land property rights. Beyond their limited spatial impact, public allocations of farmland are actually important local initiatives for the institutional recognition of sustainable agriculture models, one driver within urban policies aiming at supporting a transition towards agroecology and more sustainable food systems. Governance processes could, however, be improved if local authorities would more explicitly tackle the possible issues related to the coexistence of diverse agricultural models in space, as in public debates and policies.

Land Market Distortions and Aggregate Agricultural Productivity: Evidence From Guatemala

Farm size and land allocation are important factors in explaining lagging agricultural productivity in developing countries. This paper examines the effect of land market imperfections on land allocation across farmers and aggregate agricultural productivity. We develop a theoretical framework to model the optimal size distribution of farms and assess to what extent market imperfections can explain non-optimal land allocation and output in-efficiency. We measure these distortions for the case of Guatemala using agricultural census microdata. We find that due to land market imperfections aggregate output is 19% below its efficient level for both maize and beans and 31% below for coffee, which are three major crops produced nationwide. The regions with higher distortions show a higher dispersion in land prices and less active rental markets. We also find that the degree of land market distortions across locations co-variate with road accessibility and ethnicity and, in a lower extent, with education.

Economic allocation of farm land for commercial crops – a case study in Kasargod Region of India

Economic allocation of land is an important activity in agricultural planning. Due to the changing prices of crops in market, it's vital for a farmer to appropriately allocate the land for the various crops to maximise the income. Therefore, this study focuses on allocation of land for commercial crops, namely arecanut, pepper, coconut and rubber. Initially, linear programming technique was applied to determine the optimum crop mix. The results of which is then compared with the traditional method adopted by the farmer. A sensitivity analysis was then performed to determine the optimal capital requirement. Later on to predict the behaviour of the income on a long run a SD model was developed. The factors like market price, cost of crops and weather conditions on yield were considered. The simulation results predicted that by 2030, the income will rise by 59% than the current condition if the suggested crop-mix is adopted.