Informations et ressources scientifiques
sur le développement des zones arides et semi-arides

Titre : Poverty impacts of straddling. Rural income diversification in sub-Saharan Africa

Pays/Région : Afrique sub-saharienne

Date : 1 January 2011–31 December 2013

Identifiant : 2010-02108_VR

Présentation
While most of Africa´s poor are engaged in small-scale, semi-subsistence farming they also earn income from non-farm activities : they straddle the farm and the non-farm sector. Little attention has been given to how non farm activities affect farming.

This severely limits the capability of policies and interventions to reduce rural poverty. The aim of the project is to determine the impact of non farm income on farm production in Ghana and Kenya. Central research questions are : 1.How are non farm incomes affecting farm investments in land, labor and capital ? 2.What are the regional differences in the level of development of the non farm sectors of the rural economy ? 3.What are the implications of income diversification on the distribution of assets and incomes at the village level. 4.How can institutional frameworks encourage dynamic as well as equitable linkages from the non farm sector to agriculture ? We will be drawing on and adding to existing datasets for 960 smallholder households in 18 villages situated in four regions - two in Ghana and two in Kenya. Data will be analysed on the basis of : 1. The identification of dynamic linkages between non-farm incomes and agriculture 2. The distributional, equity and gendered consequences of such linkages over time 3. The geographical aspects of 1 and 2 : i. e. how market and agroecological characteristics at village level shape the links between non farm incomes and agricultural investments and their distributional consequences.

Coordination : Lund University

Financement : Swedish Research Council
Budget : 3,000,000 kr

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