Close to the edge: High productivity at plot peripheries and the inverse size-productivity relationship

By Leah E M Bevis, Christopher B. Barrett. Journal of Development Economics, 2020

71 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Smaller farms and plots appear more productive per hectare than larger ones in most developing country data. Using unique plot-level panel data from Uganda, with agricultural plots matched over a decade using geospatial location, we estimate the size-productivity relationship using variation in plot size over time under plot fixed effects, as well as variation in plot size within a farm, under household-period fixed effects. Like many other authors, we find that the observed inverse relationship arises at the plot, not farm, level, and that observable plot characteristics such as soil quality cannot explain the relationship. However, the plot perimeter/area ratio explains most of the inverse plot size-productivity relationship, reflecting an edge effect widely acknowledged in the agronomy literature wherein productivity is highest around the periphery of plots. We present suggestive evidence consistent with behavioral and biophysical mechanisms underpinning the edge effect.

Subfields: Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics, General Agricultural and Biological Sciences, Soil Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/b60f15c4b2ca57cc19fe369414e4bef46b9b6e1e

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In Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics

In General Agricultural and Biological Sciences

In Soil Science

Citations in the corpus

Measurement Error Mechanisms Matter: Agricultural Intensification with Farmer Misperceptions and Misreporting (2019, unknown): “We apply these techniques to revisit the Boserupian input intensification hypothesis in sub-Saharan African agriculture, considering the implications of widespread measurement error in farmer self-reports of plot size.”
Review: Taking stock of Africa’s second-generation agricultural input subsidy programs (2018, background): “16 See Supplementary Online Appendix B for the key findings of and brief descriptions of the data and methods used in nearly 80 studies from across the seven countries that we focus on in this review.”
The Relationship between Farm Size and Productivity in Agriculture: Evidence from Maize Production in Northern China (2019, unknown): “Bevis and Barrett (2017) examined the “edge effect” discussed in the agronomy literature wherein productivity is highest around the periphery of the plot as an alternative explanation of the inverse farm size–productivity relationship. Although both explanations found supportive evidence in the Afri”
Correlated non-classical measurement errors, ‘Second best’ policy inference, and the inverse size-productivity relationship in agriculture (2019, background): “These spurious correlations between productivity and plot characteristics are potentially driven by farmers’ misperception of plot size and associated endogenous investments, consistent with the behavioral mechanisms hypothesized by Bevis and Barrett (2017).”