Determinants of farm size and stocking rate in Namibian commercial cattle farming
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In: Land Use Policy, Vol. 81, 01.02.2019, p. 232-246.
Research output: Journal contributions › Journal articles › Research › peer-review
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TY - JOUR
T1 - Determinants of farm size and stocking rate in Namibian commercial cattle farming
AU - Engler, John-Oliver
AU - Wehrden, Henrik
AU - Baumgärtner, Stefan
N1 - Publisher Copyright: © 2018 Elsevier Ltd
PY - 2019/2/1
Y1 - 2019/2/1
N2 - Utilizing a data set of 399 Namibian commercial cattle farmers, we provide a detailed empirical analysis of farm management under highly variable rainfall. Particularly, we provide an econometric analysis of what personal characteristics of the farmer, environmental characteristics, and characteristics of the farm explain farm size and choice of stocking rate, i.e. the heads of livestock per hectare. There is strong support for the hypothesis that environmental variables such as inter-annual rainfall variability play an important role in explaining stocking rate, but not in explaining farm size in the sense of rangeland area or cattle numbers. Other major explaining factors for the stocking rate are the farmer's gender and the number of cattle on farm above a certain threshold given by a fit of the Pareto distribution to the data. Traditional farm size variables like cattle number and rangeland area are not well explained by any of the candidate models constructed, which supports the view that the stocking rate is the central farm management parameter.
AB - Utilizing a data set of 399 Namibian commercial cattle farmers, we provide a detailed empirical analysis of farm management under highly variable rainfall. Particularly, we provide an econometric analysis of what personal characteristics of the farmer, environmental characteristics, and characteristics of the farm explain farm size and choice of stocking rate, i.e. the heads of livestock per hectare. There is strong support for the hypothesis that environmental variables such as inter-annual rainfall variability play an important role in explaining stocking rate, but not in explaining farm size in the sense of rangeland area or cattle numbers. Other major explaining factors for the stocking rate are the farmer's gender and the number of cattle on farm above a certain threshold given by a fit of the Pareto distribution to the data. Traditional farm size variables like cattle number and rangeland area are not well explained by any of the candidate models constructed, which supports the view that the stocking rate is the central farm management parameter.
KW - Economics, empirical/statistics
KW - Sustainability Science
KW - Economics
KW - rangeland management
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85056157455&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - https://www.mendeley.com/catalogue/d8fd14f2-fb4b-3dc3-8fd0-0f0d20a11962/
U2 - 10.1016/j.landusepol.2018.10.009
DO - 10.1016/j.landusepol.2018.10.009
M3 - Journal articles
VL - 81
SP - 232
EP - 246
JO - Land Use Policy
JF - Land Use Policy
SN - 0264-8377
ER -