Oil palm cultivation improves living standards and human capital formation in smallholder farm households

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A1 Alkuperäisartikkeli tieteellisessä aikakauslehdessä
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Date

2022-11

Department

Department of Built Environment

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Language

en

Pages

9

Series

World Development, Volume 159

Abstract

Oil palm cultivation is a controversial topic because of its manifold sustainability implications. Recent research in Southeast Asia suggests that oil palm cultivation is associated with income gains for many smallholder farmers, but whether these income gains also translate into longer-term improvements in household living standards remains unclear. Here, we use three rounds of panel data from smallholder farmers in Sumatra, Indonesia, to analyze effects of oil palm cultivation on various indicators of living standards. Results suggest that oil palm cultivation improves nutrition, dietary quality, and expenditures on education, all important indicators of human capital formation with expected positive long-term implications. Furthermore, we find positive associations between oil palm cultivation, household asset ownership, and electricity consumption, after controlling for possible confounding factors. We conclude that oil palm cultivation improves living standards and human capital formation in smallholder farm households in this setting. (c) 2022 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

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Keywords

Oil palm, Smallholder farmers, Nutrition, Education, Living standard, Rural development

Other note

DOI

10.1016/j.worlddev.2022.106034

Citation

Chrisendo, D, Siregar, H & Qaim, M 2022, 'Oil palm cultivation improves living standards and human capital formation in smallholder farm households', World Development, vol. 159, 106034. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2022.106034

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https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:aalto-202208104502

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[article-cris] Insinööritieteiden korkeakoulu / ENG