Is Farm Size Inversely Related to Productivity in Ghana? Placing Tests of the IRR Hypothesis in the Broader Context of Development Policy Challenges in Africa
Godwin Debrah
The inverse farm size - productivity relationship (IR), commonly observed in many regions of the world, is often invoked as evidence to support the continuation of a smallholder-led development strategy. However, due to limited data on relatively large farms, most African studies have focused on farms cultivating less than ten hectares of land. Unfortunately, salient agricultural and land policy discussions in Africa revolve around the relative efficiency and growth effects of promoting medium/large emergentt farmers compared to a strategy where small-scale farmers remain the primary focus of agricultural and poverty reduction strategies. I contribute to these debates by examining farm sizes between 1 and 288 acres in four districts in southern Ghana. Using different measures of productivity such as net value of production, cost per metric ton of maize produced, ratio of net value of production to family labor used (by contrast, not specifically a test of the IR), and total factor productivity, I find no significant relationship between farm scale and the net value of agricultural output per acre cultivated. While results based on cost per metric ton of maize production, and net value of production per family labor favor larger-scale farmers, total factor productivity measure favors the IR hypothesis.
Event: Annual World Bank Conference on Land and Poverty 2015
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