Table 5 provides the most recent FAOSTAT data on tractor use in Sub-Saharan Africa. While tractors are only one possible instrument for mechanized agricultural production,<sup>3</sup> these statistics represent the only known macro-data set for comparing the mechanization status across countries. Further, because it may not be profitable for individual farmers to own a tractor and, therefore, more likely that she or he would access a tractor via a rental market instead, aggregate statistics that merely count tractors may understate the use of mechanized inputs more broadly. Draught animal power may also be an important means of mechanization, although most reviews of livestock prevalence fail to disaggregate animals that would provide power to the farm (e.g., oxen, cattle, and donkey).

Table 5: Total number of tractors by country for most recently available year

||Year|Total Number<br>|Tractors Per<br>|1000 People<br>|People Per<br>|1 Tractor<br>|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|||of Tractors|Total Pop.|Rural Pop.|Total Pop.|Rural Pop.|
|Ethiopia|-|-|-|-|-|-|
|Malawi|1968|692|0.16|0.17|6,197|5,854|
|Niger|2006|375|0.03|0.03|35,893|29,899|
|Nigeria|2007|24,800|0.17|0.32|5,925|3,103|
|Tanzania|2002|21,207|0.59|0.77|1,690|1,300|
|Uganda|1977|2,076|0.18|0.19|5,569|5,171|

Source: FAOSTAT. For total and rural population definitions, see FAOSTAT.

# **3. Data and sample selection**

The sample used in this analysis includes all households that cultivated at least one agricultural plot in a recent wave of LSMS-ISA data in Ethiopia (2011/12), Malawi (2010/11), Niger (2011/12), Nigeria (2010/11), Tanzania (2010/11), and Uganda (2010/11). For those countries where two seasons of agricultural data are available (Malawi, Niger, Tanzania, Uganda) our analysis focuses on the main agricultural season. Because the surveys are nationally representative (apart from Ethiopia which is representative of the rural and small town population only) and not necessarily representative of the farming population, the portion of the total sample that we use differs across countries. Since most input use is observed at the agricultural plot, not household, level, many of the statistics that follow will also be calculated at the plot level.<sup>4</sup> Table 6 describes the sample size for each country used in this analysis. Across the six countries, our sample includes 22,565 households and 62,387 plots, which represents nearly three-quarters of all households in the full surveys and is overwhelmingly rural.

Great attention was paid to ensure that computed input variables and covariates are as comparable as possible across countries despite sometimes large differences in how questions were asked or what type of information was extracted from survey respondents. Caveats to lack of comparability or reasons why statistics may vary due in large part to differences in survey design are provided where it seems appropriate. Otherwise, Appendix 2 provides more detail on

> 3 Sometimes the term “tractorization” is used to describe the transition towards tractors specifically, but does not capture the spirit of mechanization more generally.

> 4 While we use the term “plot” throughout this analysis for simplicity, the actual unit of land described in each of these surveys may differ: Ethiopia-field within parcel by holder; Malawi-plot; Niger-parcel within field; Nigeriaplot; Tanzania-plot; Uganda-parcel (aggregating input use across plots on a parcel).

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