Agricultural productivity does seem to have a positive relationship to the education of
farmers. After reviewing 18 studies containing 31 data sets which bear on agricultural
productivity Lockheed, Jamison and Lau (1980) concluded that four years of primary
education increased productivity by 8.7% with a standard deviation of 9%. When
weighting was introduced to account for variations in standard errors associated with
the various studies, the result was a 7.4% gain with a standard deviation of 6.8%.
Though there were some studies that did not show gains the overall effect is clear. As
might be expected there are reservations. Output was measured in terms of crop value
in most cases - this is dependent on price structures that vary widely between crops and
countries. Different studies measured educational inputs in different ways - e.g. number
of years, highest grade completed, dichotomous achievement of literacy. They also
associated the educational variables with different individuals or groups - head of
household, an aggregate for all family members, or for all farm workers. In addition
other input factors were measured in a wide variety of ways - by quantity or value or
time input, by type of capital available, by technological characteristics of farming
(irrigation, new seed varieties, fertilizers etc.).
This review also indicated that agricultural productivity was more influenced by
education in modernising than in traditional environments as Shultz (1975) had earlier
suggested was plausible. Traditional environments were defined in terms of primitive
technology, traditional farming practices and crops, and minimal reported levels of
innovation. Modernising environments include access to new varieties of seeds,
innovative farming practices, the control of erosion, the availability of pesticides,
fertilisers and farm machinery, access to extension services and the existence of market
orientated production. When the studies were simply classified into traditional and
modernising environments the result was to suggest that four years of primary
education increased productivity by a mean value of 1.3% in traditional environments
and 9.5% in modernising ones. When regressions were undertaken the average gain in
modernising environments was consistently 10% greater than in traditional
environments. A recent update [Jamison, Lau, Lockheed and Evanson 1992] reaffirms
this general picture.
Findings of five studies on education and agricultural productivity are reported in
Haddad et al (1991:5) which include those by Jamison and Lau (1982) in Korea,
Malaysia and Thailand and Jamison and Moock (1984) in Nepal. Four of these show
positive and significant effects of education under different conditions. They support
the view that the effects are greater in modernising environments. Though Thai farmers
physical productivity and choice of technology was related to their educational level, it
was not the case that they achieved higher prices for their outputs or lower prices for
inputs, suggesting perhaps that they were no better at exploiting comparative
advantages and using market information than others with less education. Market
efficiency may therefore depend more on factors other than increased educational