Rural Income Diversification In Ethiopia Patterns Trends And Welfare Impacts

Download or read book Rural income diversification in Ethiopia: Patterns, trends, and welfare impacts written by Abate, Gashaw Tadesse and published by Intl Food Policy Res Inst. This book was released on 2023-01-03 with total page 64 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Increased diversification of rural households into the rural non-farm economy is an important driver of economic growth and structural transformation in countries like Ethiopia where the vast majority of people live in rural areas and are largely dependent on seasonal agriculture. Some of the benefits of diversification include efficient utilization of asset endowments (e.g., labor during dry season) and reduction of risks. In this study we explore the: (i) patterns and trends of diversification, (ii) drivers of diversification including the association between rainfall risk/shocks and diversification, and (iii) welfare effects of diversification during the recent decade using three rounds of representative household data from the four main regions of Ethiopia. We used Cragg’s double-hurdle model, a method that considers the two-step decision making process in diversification (i.e., participation and extent of participation), to identify the determinants of diversification and a fixed-effect and instrumental variable (IV) approaches to understand the links between diversification and household welfare. The descriptive results show that rural households generally adopt a livelihood strategy dominated by farming and that the level of diversification has been stagnant over the period of analysis considered. More importantly, the vast majority of households continue to draw a substantial share of their income from crop production, followed by livestock. The income from non-farm activities accounts only between 17 percent and 23 percent of the total income. The econometrics results show that diversification is positively associated with credit access, membership in social insurance, ownership of mobile phone, relative measure of household wealth, and population density. Conversely, access to relatively large, fertile, and irrigable land discourages diversification into non-farm activities. The analysis on the association between rainfall risks and diversification indicates that rural households use income diversification both as risk mitigation and shock coping strategy. The results on the link between income diversification and household welfare indicate a positive association between diversification and household total consumption expenditure, dietary diversity score, and housing/roof quality. In sum, the results imply the need for a deliberate effort to expand the non-farm economy so as to tap its full potential for employment generation, income growth, and welfare improvements. A starting point could be for agricultural and rural development policies and investments to go beyond promotion of cereal crop production and facilitate participation in high value crop, livestock, aquaculture production. Incentivizing investments in value addition activities that can create and enrich upward and downward linkages in the midstream segment of agricultural value chains is another potential avenue to boost rural non-farm economy.

Download or read book Changing farm sizes and farmers’ demographics in Ethiopia written by Bachewe, Fantu Nisrane and published by Intl Food Policy Res Inst. This book was released on 2023-05-12 with total page 15 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Important changes in farms and farm demographics are noted in Ethiopia since 2004/05. These changes have important implications on discussions of the future of Ethiopian agriculture. Comparing the national agricultural sample survey of the Ethiopian Statistical Services (ESS) data between 2004/05 and 2016/17, we find that: (1) Average farm sizes of smallholders declined by more than 10 percent over the decade, from 1.2 to 0.9 hectares; the decline in farm sizes of female headed households is more pronounced at over 21 percent, (2) Farmers are becoming older: the share of Ethiopian farmers under 35 declined from 36 to 30 percent, (3) The youth have smaller and declining farm sizes, declining from 0.9 to 0.8 hectares, (4) Rental markets are becoming more important, with 12 percent of crop land being rented in at the end of the period; especially the youth rely more on rental markets to access land, with 20 percent of their land rented in, and (5) Education levels are rapidly increasing, with the share of illiterate youth farmers declining from 56 to 30 percent. This has important implications for the future of Ethiopian agriculture and the overall economy.

Download or read book Income Diversification in Zimbabwe written by Lire Ersado and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2006 with total page 28 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The author examines, taking into account the urban-rural divides, the changes and welfare implications of income diversification in Zimbabwe following macroeconomic policy changes and droughts of the early 1990s. Data from two comparable national income, consumption and expenditure surveys in 1990-91 and 1995-96, which straddled a period of economic volatility and natural disasters, show that the percentage of households earning income from private and informal sources grew considerably, while that from government and formal sources declined in the aftermath of the drought and policy changes. The author finds that, in general, rural households tend to have a more diversified portfolio of income compared with their urban counterparts, and the degree of diversification decreases with the level of urbanization. However, there are important differences in the level of diversification within the rural and urban areas depending on wealth: While the relatively better-off households have a more diversified income base in rural areas, it is the poor who pursue multiple income sources in urban areas. A decomposition of changes in welfare indicates that the total contribution of income diversification is large and increased between 1990-91 and 1995-96 in both urban and rural areas. On the other hand, there were significant declines in returns to human and physical capital assets during the same period. The findings suggest that households with a more diversified income base are better able to withstand the unfavorable impacts of the policy and weather shocks. The fact that relatively better-off households have a more diversified income base following the shocks implies that the poor are more vulnerable to economic changes unaccompanied by well-designed safety nets. "--World Bank web site.

Download or read book Agriculture, Diversification, and Gender in Rural Africa written by Agnes Andersson Djurfeldt and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018 with total page 286 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book contributes to the understanding of smallholder agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa through addressing the dynamics of intensification and diversification within and outside agriculture in contexts where women have much poorer access to agrarian resources than men

Download or read book African Smallholders written by Göran Djurfeldt and published by CABI. This book was released on 2011 with total page 396 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book investigates how the changed agricultural policy climate affected government policies in the nine countries studied already as part of the preceding project: Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Nigeria, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia. By repeating the cross-sectional survey made in over 100 villages in 2002 and converting it into a panel, it is possible to trace village- and household-level effects of agricultural policies and other macro-level processes. The book consists of 14 chapters most of which revolve around studies on each of the nine case study countries.

Download or read book Agricultural Commercialization, Economic Development, and Nutrition written by Joachim Von Braun and published by International Food Policy Research Insitute. This book was released on 1994 with total page 444 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Subsistence production: a sign of market failure. Commercialization cannot be left to the market. Household effects of commercialization. Nutrition effects of commercialization. Policy action needed.

Download or read book Farming Systems and Poverty written by John A. Dixon and published by Food & Agriculture Org.. This book was released on 2001 with total page 424 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A joint FAO and World Bank study which shows how the farming systems approach can be used to identify priorities for the reduction of hunger and poverty in the main farming systems of the six major developing regions of the world.