Agricultural Land Use and Asset Accumulation in Migrant Households: the Case of El Salvador

This paper examines the effect that international migration and remittances have on agricultural outcomes at the household level in El Salvador. Panel data are used to examine land use allocations, agricultural asset accumulation, and agricultural input use and returns. Findings suggest that migration and remittances cause a household to reallocate land away from commercial cash crops toward the production of subsistence food crops. There is weak evidence that migration and remittances contribute positively to agricultural asset accumulation in the form of land and livestock holdings. Further, results suggest that migration and remittance do not affect agricultural input use and may decrease the returns to land and labour on farm, as migrant households farm their land less intensively than non-migrant households.