The Impact of Rural-Rural Migration on Crop Production in North-western Ethiopia: An Application of Endogenous Switching Regression Model

Abstract

The emphasis for rural-rural migration has been given very low attention in
the development discourses in the context of poor countries. Rural-urban
migration in developing countries is not like what the majority of the
literature attempt to show. At the same time, previous studies failed to see the
synergies existing within the agricultural economy itself. Its heterogeneous
agro-ecological and diverse production potential has been buried in migration
studies. Deeper studies are still recommended on the impact of migration on
agricultural and rural development. Therefore, anchored on the theory of new
economics of labour migration that focuses on household level analysis, this
study attempts to examine the impact of rural to rural migration on crop
production of the sending farm household in North-Western Ethiopia. From
Endogenous Switching Regression model, the impact of labour migration was
found to be positive and significant that mainly was caused by improved new
variety use, fertilizer application and experience sharing through labour
migration in the large scale commercial agricultural production belt.