Effects of non-farm activities on household income in selected rapidly urbanizing villages in Mufindi District in Iringa Region, Tanzania

Abstract

Although, agriculture remains the main source of income and employment in developing countries, it is a universally accepted fact that agricultural sector is incapable of creating sufficient income in the middle of increasing population. Thus, the non-farm sector is increasingly becoming important. Generally, the study assessed the effects of non-farm activities to household income in purposefully selected rapidly urbanizing villages in Mufindi District, namely; Nyololo Shuleni, Lugema, Igowole and Kiyowela, whereby, the sample of 223 farmers was involved. The study specifically identified the non-farm activities in the study area; determined the factors that influence farmers to participate in non-farm activities in the rapidly urbanizing villages, and examined the effects of non- farm activities on income of the farmers in those villages. Descriptive statistics were used to identify non-farm activities in the study area and obtain general characteristics of the study population. Probit model was used to capture the influence of determinants of non-farm activities participation by farmers and results indicated that sex, age, and education level of farmers were statistically significant while farm size owned and farm size cultivated were not. Propensity Score Matching was used to determine the effect of non-farm activities on the income of farmers in urbanizing villages and the findings show that the difference in incomes between farmers with non-farm activities and those without was statistically significant. It can be concluded that, non-farm activities served as the potential alternative source of income to farmers which will enable them to secure more necessities for their better living. Therefore, it is recommended that, to improve household income, the government should improve the quality of education offered by introducing agricultural and entrepreneurial courses in elementary schools and make them core courses to increase awareness of importance of various activities. In addition, subsidizing agricultural inputs, but also improving infrastructure facilities such roads, will be a good move to non-farm activities in improving people‟s income.