Determinants of land use change and impact on household welfare among smallholder farmers in Sumatra

Abstract: Over the past few decades, tropical lowland rainforest areas in Indonesia and elsewhere have experienced a dramatic change in land use, first induced by timber extraction and then by agricultural expansion with varying but steadily increasing use intensities. This project seeks to understand the micro level determinants of recent land use changes and to quantify their impacts on the welfare of smallholder farm households. Interview-based household panel surveys will be carried out in Jambi, Sumatra. Based on the survey data, the economic profitability of agricultural and forestry activities will be estimated, which will also be an important ingredient to analyze socioeconomic-ecological tradeoffs. Econometric models will be developed and specified to analyze the adoption of new activities, especially oil palm production, and impacts on income, income distribution, poverty and food security. Both direct and indirect effects will be evaluated, and the role of policies and institutions will be highlighted. The household level data will be complemented by a village survey and economic experiments with villagers to analyze the role of social capital for land use change.
This project is part of the Collaborative Research Center CRC 990 (http://www.uni-goettingen.de/crc990).

Research involved: Marcel Gatto, Michael Euler, Vijesh Krishna, Stefan Schwarze, Matin Qaim, Meike Wollni and various partners in Indonesia

Funding: DFG

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