Farm and Non-farm Income Diversification in Selected Areas of Sunamganj District of Bangladesh

Rural income diversification by increasing income and reducing risk of vulnerability help the poor farmers to improve their standard of living. The study assesses the occupational patterns, sources of income diversification and factors that affect farmer’s decision towards income diversification. The findings will be extended to the rural farmers to identify their potential socioeconomic indicators that affect their livelihood diversification decision. Two villages of Sunamganj district of Bangladesh was purposively selected for this study. The results of the analyses showed that the maximum farmers (25) were following the crop cultivation + fish catching + non-farm occupational pattern. The Simpson index of diversification (SID) showed that the low, medium and high levels of diversified farmers were about 23 percent, 43 percent, and 13 percent, respectively. The result of the Logit model shows that age negatively and farm size positively influence income diversification decision of the farmer while sex, education level, marital status, family size, membership status of the sampled farmers, access to credit and market distance does not. The FGD revealed some coping strategies during the lean period. It could be suggested to the poor farmers to improve their farm activities and to diversify their income sources to non-farm income activities to reduce income vulnerability.