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Balancing the trade-offs between land productivity, labor productivity and labor intensity
Agricultural intensification, through increased yields, and raising incomes, through enhanced labor productivity, are two dimensions prioritized for sustainable agricultural development. Prioritizing these two outcomes leaves labor intensity as a hidden adjustment variable. Yet, when agriculture is...
Autores principales: | , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Springer Netherlands
2023
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10460764/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37368162 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s13280-023-01887-4 |
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author | Chiarella, Cristina Meyfroidt, Patrick Abeygunawardane, Dilini Conforti, Piero |
author_facet | Chiarella, Cristina Meyfroidt, Patrick Abeygunawardane, Dilini Conforti, Piero |
author_sort | Chiarella, Cristina |
collection | PubMed |
description | Agricultural intensification, through increased yields, and raising incomes, through enhanced labor productivity, are two dimensions prioritized for sustainable agricultural development. Prioritizing these two outcomes leaves labor intensity as a hidden adjustment variable. Yet, when agriculture is mainstay and the prospects of labor absorption in other sectors are scarce, the density of agricultural employment is central for livelihoods. We revise relationships of land and labor productivity and labor intensity with farm size, using standardized data for 32 developing countries. We show that labor productivity increases with farm size, while land productivity and labor intensity decrease with farm size nonlinearly. Technical efficiency increases with farm size. We further systematize the evidence on how, beyond the farm level, local contexts can be pivotal in choosing how to prioritize the dimensions of the trade-off space. Our findings contribute to debates on the fate of small-scale farmers, and call for contextualized decisions. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s13280-023-01887-4. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-10460764 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2023 |
publisher | Springer Netherlands |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-104607642023-08-29 Balancing the trade-offs between land productivity, labor productivity and labor intensity Chiarella, Cristina Meyfroidt, Patrick Abeygunawardane, Dilini Conforti, Piero Ambio Research Article Agricultural intensification, through increased yields, and raising incomes, through enhanced labor productivity, are two dimensions prioritized for sustainable agricultural development. Prioritizing these two outcomes leaves labor intensity as a hidden adjustment variable. Yet, when agriculture is mainstay and the prospects of labor absorption in other sectors are scarce, the density of agricultural employment is central for livelihoods. We revise relationships of land and labor productivity and labor intensity with farm size, using standardized data for 32 developing countries. We show that labor productivity increases with farm size, while land productivity and labor intensity decrease with farm size nonlinearly. Technical efficiency increases with farm size. We further systematize the evidence on how, beyond the farm level, local contexts can be pivotal in choosing how to prioritize the dimensions of the trade-off space. Our findings contribute to debates on the fate of small-scale farmers, and call for contextualized decisions. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s13280-023-01887-4. Springer Netherlands 2023-06-27 2023-10 /pmc/articles/PMC10460764/ /pubmed/37368162 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s13280-023-01887-4 Text en © The Author(s) 2023 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . |
spellingShingle | Research Article Chiarella, Cristina Meyfroidt, Patrick Abeygunawardane, Dilini Conforti, Piero Balancing the trade-offs between land productivity, labor productivity and labor intensity |
title | Balancing the trade-offs between land productivity, labor productivity and labor intensity |
title_full | Balancing the trade-offs between land productivity, labor productivity and labor intensity |
title_fullStr | Balancing the trade-offs between land productivity, labor productivity and labor intensity |
title_full_unstemmed | Balancing the trade-offs between land productivity, labor productivity and labor intensity |
title_short | Balancing the trade-offs between land productivity, labor productivity and labor intensity |
title_sort | balancing the trade-offs between land productivity, labor productivity and labor intensity |
topic | Research Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10460764/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37368162 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s13280-023-01887-4 |
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