Search results

This study investigates how income from non-farm activities affects households' consumption in two land holders' groups: households with insecure land holding and households with secure land holding.

Following an instrumental variable approach, this study analyzes data collected on a nationwide sample of 1,800 households in rural Burkina Faso.

For insecure land holders' group, this study finds that income from non-farm activities has a positive effect on household consumption per capita. Moreover, the share of household food consumption is negatively associated with non-farm income in this group. For secure land holders' group, the results show that non-farm income has only a negative effect on the share of their food consumption.

The study highlights the livelihood sustaining role of non-farm activities for rural households. Unlike previous studies, the results show that non-farm income is particularly important for land tenure insecure households facing risk of losing agricultural income.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-05-2023-0423

This paper assesses the effect of land ownership on household food security through its productivity enhancement effect in rural Burkina Faso.

As the link between land tenure security and productivity is indirect, the study relies on a complex mixed process regression model with robustness to assess the effect of land ownership on household productivity. Then, an instrumental variable (IV) approach is followed to investigate the association between household productivity and food security. The rural development program survey data collected from 1,892 households in 2017 are used.

The complex mixed process estimation results are robust and show that land ownership has a positive effect on household productivity. From the IV results, it is found that productive households spend more on food, have a low share of expenditures on food and are less likely to experience severe food shortages, implying an improvement in their food security status. This highlights a positive association between land ownership and food security.

Unlike previous studies that only focused on the effect of land ownership on land-related investments and agricultural productivity, this study deepens the analysis and sheds light on how land ownership, agricultural production and food security are related. It gives empirical evidence on the importance of land policies in the struggle against food insecurity in agrarian economies.

The peer review history for this article is available at https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-11-2021-0658.