Farm-off-farm linkages: Contribution of off-farm employment to farm inputs expenditure, shocks management and poverty reduction in Kilombero valley, Tanzania
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Date
2016
Authors
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Journal ISSN
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Publisher
Sokoine University of Agriculture
Abstract
Livelihoods diversification towards off-farm employment is becoming a norm in
developing countries and has some welfare effects. Hence, this study was carried out
to unveil the effect of off-farm employment on three dimensions of poverty. These
dimensions were farm input expenditure, exposure to income shocks and income
poverty. The study adopted a cross-sectional design and was carried out in the
Kilombero Valley. Data were collected using a structured questionnaire from 309
randomly selected households and complemented with in-depth interiviews and
focus group discussions. The sampling process involved mutlistage and purposive
sampling techniques. Regression models and Foster-greer-Thorbecke (FGT) poverty
index were employed as analytical tools. Content analysis was used to analyse
qualitative data. The findings show that 82% of the surveyed households were
engaged in off-farm employment. This engagement was positively influenced by a
household’s structural and cognivive social capital levels, education and age of
household head, land owned under cultivation and access to loans. Results on the
input effect show that non-farm-self employment was positive and significant (p ≤
0.05) in explaining input expenditure, implying farm-off-farm production linkage in
which case off-farm income is spent on inputs purchase. On the contrary,
engagement in farm wage employment was found to impose labour shortage for
households own farm work, leading to a lost labour effect. Despite its undesirable
household’s labour withdrawal effect, this employment category had a consumption
smoothing effect thus, playing an ex post risk management role. The findings further
reveal that non-farm self-employment has comparably more positive effects on the
Foster-Greer-Thorbecke poverty measures than activities related to farm wage and non-farm wage employment. The main conclusion drawn from the thesis is that, off
farm employment is heterogeneous and its effects on offsetting farm inputs
constraints, income shocks and income poverty differs. It is recommended that, the
issue of rural development should not be viewed as an artificial choice between
promoting either off-farm wage labour or off-farm self-employment or subsistence
farming alone. The issue is what strategic combinations and interlinkages are
required to develop a vibrant diversified rural economy in which off-farm is a critical
component.
Description
A THESIS SUBMITTED IN FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS
FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOSHY OF SOKOINE
UNIVERSITY OF AGRICULTURE. MOROGORO, TANZANIA.
Keywords
Farm-off-farm linkages, Off-farm employment contribution, Farm inputs expenditure, Shocks management, Poverty reduction, Kilombero Valley, Tanzania