Intercropping can enhance long-term farm economic performance: Evidence from Swedish agriculture 2001–2018
Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: We investigate the long-term economic effects of adopting intercropping using a farm-level dataset from Sweden spanning the period 2001 to 2018. Guided by a causal model framework, specifically a causal path diagram, we apply a debiased fixed-effects method that dynamically incorporates information about past farm performance into the model estimation. We also triangulate the findings from the debiased fixed-effects method with results from both semi-parametric and instrumental variable approaches. Our baseline results indicate that adopting intercropping is associated with a 5–13 per cent increase in farm net income over the long term, with significant variations observed across different farm types. In addition, the findings show that intercropping adoption predicts an increase in the gross value of total production, labor demand and intermediate costs in the long term. Finally, the results reveal that intercropping adoption mitigates the negative effects of extreme climatic conditions on farm net income.
DOI: 10.1093/erae/jbaf049
Institution: Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
Language: English
Subfield: Safety Research
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
Estimated APC paid: $5,071
Funder: Svenska Forskningsrådet Formas
Awards: Growing species mixtures in Swedish agriculture: barriers and economic effects, Transforming the food value chain based on ecologically and economically sustainable crop production (TRANSECO), Quantifying the impacts of extreme climatic events:Crop diversity, production performance, farmers’ adaptation, AgroDrive - the transition to fossil-free energy in Sweden´s agricultural and food systems, for improved competitiveness, higher resilience, and better climate
OpenAlex ID: W4416057111