Prospects of sustainable intensification of smallholder farming systems: A farmer typology approach

Abstract

Smallholder farming systems are highly diverse, owing to differences in farmers’ resource endowments, levels of technology use, degree of market access and agro-ecological factors. Consequently, the prospects of achieving sustainable intensification of smallholder farming systems need to be examined vis-à-vis the dominant farmer typologies, so as to help craft effective and tailored interventions. The objective of this paper is to develop a methodology to establish farm typologies prevalent within the smallholder farming systems and infer their implications for the drive to achieve sustainable intensification of agriculture. A cross-sectional survey was carried out, covering 600 households in four regions of Ethiopia’s Highlands. Multivariate statistical techniques of Principal Components Analysis (PCA) and Cluster Analysis (CA) were used to group farmers into four distinct clusters. The study then compared relative levels of agricultural intensification and sustainability across the different typology clusters. The study found that households who are more commercially oriented and have larger landholdings, higher levels of productive assets and livestock ownership, exhibit higher levels of both agricultural intensification and relative sustainability. The study concludes that the farm typology approach has important policy application as it helps identify the set of socioeconomic characteristics of farmers that influence their propensity to achieve sustainable intensification.

Keywords:

• sustainable intensification
• farmer typologies
• multivariate analysis
• Ethiopia

Acknowledgement

This study was conducted within the Africa RISING research programme in Ethiopia that is implemented by the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI). The author would like to kindly thank the ILRI staff, under the leadership of Dr Kindu Mekonnen and Dr Peter Thorne for supporting the data collection process in Ethiopia. This work was supported by the USAID-funded Africa RISING programme (ILRI), the Norman E. Borlaug Leadership Enhancement in Agriculture Program (LEAP) Fellowship, as well as Colorado State University, Department Agricultural and Resource Economics. The content is solely the responsibility of the author/s and does not necessarily represent the official views of USAID, Africa RISING programme or that of the Borlaug LEAP Fellowship.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.