Working Paper 47: How Conflicts Affect Land Expansion by Smallholder Farmers: Evidence from Nigeria
Written by, Adesoji Adelaja, Justin George, Thomas Jayne, Milu Muyanga, Titus Awokuse, Adebayo Aromolaran and Lenis Saweda O. Liverpool-Tasie.
The expansion of smallholder farms into larger farm sizes is a key strategy for growing agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa. This strategy could simultaneously expand farm incomes while addressing poverty since the majority of farms in sub-Saharan Africa are smallholder farms. There is limited existing research on the possible role of conflicts in stymying the ability of smallholder farmers to transition into larger-scale farming and on the impacts of conflicts in areas that are not directly within active conflict zones. In this paper, we investigate the impacts of conflict on the ability of smallholder farmers to transition to larger scales in two regions that are not in a traditional conflict zone, by developing a household utility maximisation model to explain choices made by farm households in response to conflict.