The role of household labour for sustainable intensification in smallholder systems: a case study in cocoa farming systems

Sustainable agricultural intensification aims at increasing yields on existing agricultural land without negative environmental impacts. Managing pests and diseases contributes to increasing yields. Without synthetic pesticides, this management is labour intensive. Smallholder farming systems heavily rely on manual and household labour, which will be affected by future demographic changes. Knowledge on how these changes will affect sustainable intensification is limited. Based on a case study of Ugandan cocoa farms, we tested the impact of increased household labour availability on pest and disease management (PDM) practices and pesticide use. We made use of a unique quasi-experimental design, in which household labour increased during the national COVID-19 lockdowns as children did not attend school and family members returned from cities. Our interview data from 2019 to 2021 showed that household labour availability increased on average by 0.8 (+/- 2.5) household members and 16% of labour days per hectare. Using different regression models complemented with qualitative insights, we found that the uptake of alternative PDM practices significantly reduced pesticide quantities and expenditures. The implementation of alternative PDM practices was only weakly influenced by household labour availability and increased with farmer training and trust in alternative practices. These results imply that alternative PDM practices are an important pillar for production with little or without synthetic pesticides and their adoption requires support and incentives, especially on labour or resource-constrained farms.