Soil Quality in Uganda: Do Transfer Rights Really Matter?

This paper uses a unique decade-long panel data with lab-tested soil measures from farmers in Uganda to examine the relationship between transfer rights and soil quality. We find that transfer rights are associated with better soil. This possibly has to do with the ways farmers with transfer rights manage their land compared to farmers without transfer rights. We find strong positive correlation between transfer rights and use of chemical fertilizers. Although we find no strong correlation between transfer rights and agricultural intensification in terms of manure use, the strong positive relationship found between transfer rights and soil quality may suggest that farmers with transfer rights may be investing in soil improvement through other means such as use of compost, crop residues, and fallowing.