Entrepreneurship and Farm Profit in Rural Niger

With numerous challenges hindering farm households entrepreneurship decision, it is often argued that entrepreneurship can play an essential role in improving farm productivity. Yet assessment of the impact of entrepreneurship on farm productivity is scarce. We address this issue by analyzing the effect of non-agricultural entrepreneurship on farm profit. Using the World Bank s Living Standards Measurement Study-Integrated Survey on Agriculture datasets for 2011 and 2014 of Niger and applying endogenous switching regression, we find that non-agricultural entrepreneurship significantly increases farm profit. Farm profit increased by 908,504.4 CFA F for the farm households that developed non-agricultural enterprises thanks to their entrepreneurship behavior. The total value of farm profit for the farm households without non-agricultural enterprises would have increased by 808,789.2 CFA F relative to the current level with the development of non-agricultural enterprises. The findings support increasing arguments on the need to promote entrepreneurship in rural areas to improve farm profit and to transform structurally the economy Acknowledgement :