The Effects of Social Capital and Migration on Agricultural Practices and Well-Being among Farmers in Sri Lanka and Bangladesh: Evidence from Household Surveys

Thesis directed by Associate Professor Amanda R. Carrico Agriculture is a small but key economic sector globally, providing food security and livelihoods for millions, with upwards of half of household incomes in some regions. Farming is inherently reliant on environmental conditions and thus high risk. Despite this, development of the agricultural sector is widely viewed as one of the better ways for improving the lives of many of the world’s poor, facilitating upward social and economic mobility. Climate change, however, threatens farms and farmers, who will need to adapt. Social capitals, broadly conceived, are often thought of as a sort of social safety net and may include things like support, trust and cohesion. Social capitals can help farmers respond and adapt to changing conditions and have been widely explored in agricultural contexts across multiple disciplines. Relatively few studies, however, incorporate multiple measures or levels of social capital, and the range of outcome variables considered within smallholding agriculture settings is relatively narrow. Using data from two household surveys and diverse statistical approaches, I explore how multiple measures of social capital (support, trust, cohesion, ties) are correlated with farmer knowledge and adoption of potentially adaptive on-farm practices, changes to agricultural livelihoods, and farm and farmer well-being. I also consider how social capital intersects with migration, another critically important livelihood strategy in agricultural settings. In doing so, I examine the significance of social ties to migrants on agricultural livelihoods and well-being. Throughout this work, I find support for the importance of social capitals for farmers, but the conditions and contexts vary. In Chapter 2, I find that multiple dimensions of social capital positively predict on-farm adaptation practices. In Chapter 3, results revealed that households that have sent a migrant are significantly less likely to leave agricultural livelihoods. Results in Chapter 4 complicate some of these findings, revealing that social capital is sometimes positively predictive and sometimes negatively predictive of agricultural outcomes and farmer well-being. These findings may be of interest for food and agriculture development programs, for both rural and urban planners (related to migration), and for researchers in fields such as sociology, anthropology, health, and social and environmental psychology, and for broad programs whose focus is on sustainable development.