Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations Economic and Social Development Department Transformation in farm size and farmland distribution: What do we know and what are we missing by reliance on household survey data? Follow up to The State of Food and Agriculture 2014: Innovation in family farming Sarah K Lowder, PhD Economist, FAO 15 March, 2016 World Bank Land & Poverty Conference 2016

Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations Economic and Social Development Department

Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations Economic and Social Development Department Farmland distribution in Guatemala By using household survey data to study the agricultural sector in Guatemala we miss what is happening on the majority of the agricultural land. What are we missing by reliance on household surveys? Source: Lowder, Skoet and Raney, article in press. World Development.

Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations Economic and Social Development Department Farms & farmland distribution in select countries of sub-Saharan Africa, using agricultural census data

Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations Economic and Social Development Department Estimates of total hectares of agricultural land using LSMS, FAOSTAT and Global Land Cover-Share data LSMS-ISA amount of agricultural land FAOSTAT, arable land and permanent crops FAO Global Land Cover-Share, cropland area* Malawi, 20112,566,2373,735,0004,687,700 Nigeria, ,396,57441,700,00034,636,100 Tanzania, ,025,51215,650,00014,647,200 Uganda, 20125,211,5249,150,0006,241,000 Notes: * year is as indicated in column 1, except for Global Land Cover-Share data which are for the year 2014.

Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations Economic and Social Development Department Average farm size, 1960 – 2000*, by country group Note: Uses agricultural census reports. * Some imputations made. Source: Lowder, Skoet and Raney, article in press. World Development.

Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations Economic and Social Development Department Number of countries with decrease or increase in the average size of agricultural holdings for at least 2 periods from DecreaseIncreaseNeither High-income countries 7264 East Asia and the Pacific 820 Latin America and the Caribbean 1872 Middle East and North Africa 1000 South Asia 500 Sub-Saharan Africa 1531 Note: Uses agricultural census reports. Source: FAO, The State of Food and Agriculture 2014.

Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations Economic and Social Development Department Operated land area per household over time, select countries meanmedian Time periodoldestnewestoldestnewest Malawi Nigeria Tanzania Source: Authors' calculations using LSMS data. Agricultural land owned per household over time, select countries meanmedian Time periodoldestnewestoldestnewest Ethiopia Senegal Tanzania Zambia Zimbabwe Source: Authors' calculations using DHS data.

Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations Economic and Social Development Department Take away messages  Ongoing work to survey all farms and make microdata available (eg. AGRIS and others) deserves prioritization.  Agricultural surveys must sample or enumerate all farms, not simply households.  We need a survey of non-hh farms.  Average and median household farm size has decreased in many sub-Saharan African countries.  There is evidence of some consolidation.

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