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Impact of Rural Outmigration on Agricultural Production of Rural Farm Households: The Case of Kutaber Woreda, Ethiopia

Received: 27 October 2021    Accepted: 15 November 2021    Published: 11 December 2021
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Abstract

Over the past several years, rural areas in transition countries including Ethiopia have experienced a structural transformation in their agricultural sectors combined with profound demographic changes, primarily due to massive out migration of the rural active and educated labor forces toward urban areas and abroad. Despite the potential relevance of migration and resulting remittances in fostering or hindering of transformation in agriculture, in Ethiopia little is understood about the linkage between these activities. This study aimed to analyze the impact of rural out migration on agricultural production by using a cross-sectional data obtained from randomly chosen 270 rural farm households during 2016/17 production season. A two stage Cobb-Douglas production function was used. The estimated results of the first stage showed that out-migration of labor from rural areas had insignificant effect on the labor hours allocated for agricultural activities of both temporary and permanent migrant sending households. On the other hand, the remittance income from migrant had significant and increasing effect on farm capital stock of permanent migrant sending households. Yet, it had positive but insignificant effect on farm capital stock of temporary migrant sending households. The second stage analysis revealed that migrant sending households obtain higher income than non-migrant sending households especially the permanent one. This indicated that rural out migration had a positive impact on agricultural production of study area on the rural households. The study recommends that Ethiopian government should give emphasis to the potential contributions of outmigration in supporting or generating employment opportunities.

Published in International Journal of Economy, Energy and Environment (Volume 6, Issue 6)
DOI 10.11648/j.ijeee.20210606.12
Page(s) 142-151
Creative Commons

This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, provided the original work is properly cited.

Copyright

Copyright © The Author(s), 2024. Published by Science Publishing Group

Keywords

Temporary Migrant, Permanent Migrant, Labor, Capital, Remittance, Income

References
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[4] Birhan Asmame. 2011. “CAUSES AND CONSEQUENCES OF RURAL-URBAN MIGRATION: THE CASE OF WOLDIYA TOWN, NORTH ETHIOPIA.” UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH AFRICA. http://uir.unisa.ac.za/bitstream/handle/10500/4756/dissertation_miheretu_ba.pdf?sequence=1.
[5] Chipeta, Mafa, Bezabih Emana, and Demese Chanyalew. 2015. “Ethiopia’s Agriculture Sector Policy and Investment Framework (2010-2020): External Mid-Term Review.” Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. https://agri-learning-ethiopia.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Agriculture-Policy-MTR_FINAL.pdf.
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[9] Gao, Jianfeng, and Bradford F. Mills. 2016. “Rainfall Variabilty, Migration, Off-Farm Activities, and Transfers: Evidence from Rural Ethiopia.” Scholarly Works, Department of Agricultural and Applied Economics, Virigina Tech. https://vtechworks.lib.vt.edu/handle/10919/74025.
[10] Gebrehiwot Weldegebrial Gebru, and Fekadu Beyene. 2012. “Causes and Consequences of Out-Migration on Rural Households’ Livelihood in Gulomekeda District, Tigray, Ethiopia.” Agricultural Research and Reviews 1 (1): 26–33. http://www.wudpeckerresearchjournals.org/ARR.
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[14] Holden, Stein T, and Sosina Bezu. 2016. “Preferences for Land Sales Legalization and Land Values in Ethiopia.” Land Use Policy 52: 410–21. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2016.01.002.
[15] Hossain, MZ. 2001. “Rural-Urban Migration in Bangladesh: A Micro-Level Study.” In Paper Presented at 24th IUSSP General Conference. Salvador, Brazil. https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/f541/f3e991e7c2a1481a332e6fe91dc5dc1b0cd8.pdf.
[16] Kebede, M. 1991. “Migration and Urban Development in Ethiopia: The Case of Nazreth.” Addis Ababa University.
[17] Lowder, Sarah, Jakob Skoet, and Terri Raney. 2016. “The Number, Size, and Distribution of Farms, Smallholder Farms, and Family Farms Worldwide.” World Development. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305750X15002703.
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Cite This Article
  • APA Style

    Mulugeta Tadesse, Milkessa Temesgen, Milkessa Wakjera. (2021). Impact of Rural Outmigration on Agricultural Production of Rural Farm Households: The Case of Kutaber Woreda, Ethiopia. International Journal of Economy, Energy and Environment, 6(6), 142-151. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijeee.20210606.12

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    ACS Style

    Mulugeta Tadesse; Milkessa Temesgen; Milkessa Wakjera. Impact of Rural Outmigration on Agricultural Production of Rural Farm Households: The Case of Kutaber Woreda, Ethiopia. Int. J. Econ. Energy Environ. 2021, 6(6), 142-151. doi: 10.11648/j.ijeee.20210606.12

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    AMA Style

    Mulugeta Tadesse, Milkessa Temesgen, Milkessa Wakjera. Impact of Rural Outmigration on Agricultural Production of Rural Farm Households: The Case of Kutaber Woreda, Ethiopia. Int J Econ Energy Environ. 2021;6(6):142-151. doi: 10.11648/j.ijeee.20210606.12

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  • @article{10.11648/j.ijeee.20210606.12,
      author = {Mulugeta Tadesse and Milkessa Temesgen and Milkessa Wakjera},
      title = {Impact of Rural Outmigration on Agricultural Production of Rural Farm Households: The Case of Kutaber Woreda, Ethiopia},
      journal = {International Journal of Economy, Energy and Environment},
      volume = {6},
      number = {6},
      pages = {142-151},
      doi = {10.11648/j.ijeee.20210606.12},
      url = {https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijeee.20210606.12},
      eprint = {https://article.sciencepublishinggroup.com/pdf/10.11648.j.ijeee.20210606.12},
      abstract = {Over the past several years, rural areas in transition countries including Ethiopia have experienced a structural transformation in their agricultural sectors combined with profound demographic changes, primarily due to massive out migration of the rural active and educated labor forces toward urban areas and abroad. Despite the potential relevance of migration and resulting remittances in fostering or hindering of transformation in agriculture, in Ethiopia little is understood about the linkage between these activities. This study aimed to analyze the impact of rural out migration on agricultural production by using a cross-sectional data obtained from randomly chosen 270 rural farm households during 2016/17 production season. A two stage Cobb-Douglas production function was used. The estimated results of the first stage showed that out-migration of labor from rural areas had insignificant effect on the labor hours allocated for agricultural activities of both temporary and permanent migrant sending households. On the other hand, the remittance income from migrant had significant and increasing effect on farm capital stock of permanent migrant sending households. Yet, it had positive but insignificant effect on farm capital stock of temporary migrant sending households. The second stage analysis revealed that migrant sending households obtain higher income than non-migrant sending households especially the permanent one. This indicated that rural out migration had a positive impact on agricultural production of study area on the rural households. The study recommends that Ethiopian government should give emphasis to the potential contributions of outmigration in supporting or generating employment opportunities.},
     year = {2021}
    }
    

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  • TY  - JOUR
    T1  - Impact of Rural Outmigration on Agricultural Production of Rural Farm Households: The Case of Kutaber Woreda, Ethiopia
    AU  - Mulugeta Tadesse
    AU  - Milkessa Temesgen
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    DO  - 10.11648/j.ijeee.20210606.12
    T2  - International Journal of Economy, Energy and Environment
    JF  - International Journal of Economy, Energy and Environment
    JO  - International Journal of Economy, Energy and Environment
    SP  - 142
    EP  - 151
    PB  - Science Publishing Group
    SN  - 2575-5021
    UR  - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijeee.20210606.12
    AB  - Over the past several years, rural areas in transition countries including Ethiopia have experienced a structural transformation in their agricultural sectors combined with profound demographic changes, primarily due to massive out migration of the rural active and educated labor forces toward urban areas and abroad. Despite the potential relevance of migration and resulting remittances in fostering or hindering of transformation in agriculture, in Ethiopia little is understood about the linkage between these activities. This study aimed to analyze the impact of rural out migration on agricultural production by using a cross-sectional data obtained from randomly chosen 270 rural farm households during 2016/17 production season. A two stage Cobb-Douglas production function was used. The estimated results of the first stage showed that out-migration of labor from rural areas had insignificant effect on the labor hours allocated for agricultural activities of both temporary and permanent migrant sending households. On the other hand, the remittance income from migrant had significant and increasing effect on farm capital stock of permanent migrant sending households. Yet, it had positive but insignificant effect on farm capital stock of temporary migrant sending households. The second stage analysis revealed that migrant sending households obtain higher income than non-migrant sending households especially the permanent one. This indicated that rural out migration had a positive impact on agricultural production of study area on the rural households. The study recommends that Ethiopian government should give emphasis to the potential contributions of outmigration in supporting or generating employment opportunities.
    VL  - 6
    IS  - 6
    ER  - 

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Author Information
  • Department of Agricultural Economics and Agribusiness & Value Chain Management, Kabridahar University, Kabridahar, Ethiopia

  • Department of Agricultural Economics, Ambo University, Ambo, Ethiopia

  • Department of Agricultural Economics, Ambo University, Ambo, Ethiopia

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