IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ags/ajaees/357220.html

Livelihood and Income Diversification Strategies among Rural Farm Households in Niger State, Nigeria

Author

Listed:
  • Sallawu, H.
  • Tanko, L.
  • Coker, A. A. A.
  • Sadiq, M. S.

Abstract

Poverty incidence in Nigeria is higher among the rural-folks, that is, households that rely mainly on agricultural income. Income diversification is therefore seen as a way to secure income and to increase welfare of the farm households. This study investigated livelihood and income diversification strategies among farm households in Niger State, Nigeria. The study utilized data obtained from administering questionnaire to 287 farming households who were selected using multi-stage sampling procedure. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, and Herfindahl diversification index. The study revealed that mean age, household size, and farm size of the respondents were 42, 7, and 2.82 respectively. A total of 46.4% of the respondents had no formal education and only 12.9% had attained formal education up to the tertiary level. Majority, i.e 94.8% had no access to credit. The study further revealed that Farm income accounted for 63%, while off-farm income accounted for 37% of the total income of the sampled farm households. Over whelming majority of the farm households had more than one source of income representing 91.3%, meanwhile non-farm activities identified in the study area are forest production, agricultural trading business, agricultural processing, business (fuel, telecommunication services, spare parts dealers, etc), transportation business, blacksmith, civil service, domestic duties, handcraft, artisanship, construction worker, tailoring, health worker, and traditional medical practitioner which jointly accounted for 93.96% participation rate and 36.9% of the total income. The result of income diversification pattern and strategies adopted by the respondents were full time farming, farmer and farm worker, farm and skilled non-farm, and mixed (from all these activities). The study therefore recommend that farm households should diversify their sources of livelihood into non-farm activities available in the study area so as to increase their earnings to bridge the poverty gap and improve their livelihood, and also the level of literacy among rural farm households, and financial markets should be looked into by the government when formulating policy and developmental issues.

Suggested Citation

  • Sallawu, H. & Tanko, L. & Coker, A. A. A. & Sadiq, M. S., 2016. "Livelihood and Income Diversification Strategies among Rural Farm Households in Niger State, Nigeria," Asian Journal of Agricultural Extension, Economics & Sociology, Asian Journal of Agricultural Extension, Economics & Sociology, vol. 11(4).
    • Handle: RePEc:ags:ajaees:357220
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/357220/files/Sallawu1142016AJAEES26010.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Minot, Nicholas & Epprecht, Michael & Anh, Tran Thi Tram & Trung, Le Quang, 2006. "Income Diversification and Poverty in the Northern Uplands of Vietnam," Research Reports 37884, CGIAR, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Babatunde, Raphael O., 2013. "On-Farm and Off-farm Works: Complement or Substitute? Evidence from Rural Nigeria," 2013 Fourth International Conference, September 22-25, 2013, Hammamet, Tunisia 160437, African Association of Agricultural Economists (AAAE).
    2. Mutenje, Munyaradzi & Kankwamba, Henry & Mangisonib, Julius & Kassie, Menale, 2016. "Agricultural innovations and food security in Malawi: Gender dynamics, institutions and market implications," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 103(C), pages 240-248.
    3. Kilian Nasung Atuoye & Roger Antabe & Yujiro Sano & Isaac Luginaah & Jason Bayne, 2019. "Household Income Diversification and Food Insecurity in the Upper West Region of Ghana," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 144(2), pages 899-920, July.
    4. Ugo Pica-Ciamarra & Luca Tasciotti & Joachim Otte & Alberto Zezza, 2015. "Livestock in the Household Economy: Cross-Country Evidence from Microeconomic Data," Development Policy Review, Overseas Development Institute, vol. 33(1), pages 61-81, January.
    5. Keil, Alwin & Saint-Macary, Camille & Zeller, Manfred, 2013. "Intensive Commercial Agriculture in Fragile Uplands of Vietnam: How to Harness its Poverty Reduction Potential while Ensuring Environmental Sustainability?," Quarterly Journal of International Agriculture, Humboldt-Universitaat zu Berlin, vol. 52(01), pages 1-25, February.
    6. Jifei Zhang & Chunyan Liu & Craig Hutton & Hriday Lal Koirala, 2018. "Geographical Dynamics of Poverty in Nepal between 2005 and 2011: Where and How?," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(6), pages 1-24, June.
    7. Mwangi, Edina Metili & Yu, Bingxin, 2015. "Agricultural diversification and Land use patterns in Southeast Asia," 2015 Conference, August 9-14, 2015, Milan, Italy 211864, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    8. Egziabher, Kidanemariam G. & Mathijs, Erik & Deckers, Jozef A. & Gebrehiwot, Kindeya & Bauer, Hans & Maertens, Miet, 2013. "The Economic Impact of a New Rural Extension Approach in Northern Ethiopia," Working Papers 146558, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Centre for Agricultural and Food Economics.
    9. Zhen Liu, 2014. "The Sloping Land Conversion Program in China: Effect on Rural Households’ Livelihood Diversification," IFRO Working Paper 2014/07, University of Copenhagen, Department of Food and Resource Economics.
    10. repec:dau:papers:123456789/11399 is not listed on IDEAS
    11. Nguyen, Duc Loc & Grote, Ulrike, 2015. "Migration, Agricultural Production and Diversification: A case study from Vietnam," 2015 Conference, August 9-14, 2015, Milan, Italy 229379, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    12. Pham, Thai-Hung & Reilly, Barry, 2007. "The gender pay gap in Vietnam, 1993-2002: A quantile regression approach," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(5), pages 775-808, October.
    13. Huong Thi Le & Diep Ngoc Nguyen & Ahmed Sam Beydoun & Xuan Thi Thanh Le & Thao Thanh Nguyen & Quan Thi Pham & Nhung Thi Kim Ta & Quynh Thi Nguyen & Anh Ngoc Nguyen & Men Thi Hoang & Linh Gia Vu & Bach, 2020. "Demand for Health Information on COVID-19 among Vietnamese," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(12), pages 1-12, June.
    14. Nguyen, Huy Quynh, 2017. "Analyzing the economies of crop diversification in rural Vietnam using an input distance function," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 153(C), pages 148-156.
    15. Keil, Alwin & Nielsen, Thea, 2012. "Accounting for farmers’ risk preferences in investigating land allocation decisions in marginal environments: a test of various elicitation measures in an application from Vietnam," 2012 Conference, August 18-24, 2012, Foz do Iguacu, Brazil 126054, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    16. Harishankar, K. & Ashok, K. R. & Saravanakumar, V. & Shalander, K. & Duraisamy, M. R. & Maragatham, N., 2022. "Determinants of Income Diversification among Dairy Farm Households in Tamil Nadu," Asian Journal of Agricultural Extension, Economics & Sociology, Asian Journal of Agricultural Extension, Economics & Sociology, vol. 40(6), pages 1-6.
    17. Ndubuisi Obeka Chukwu & Jude Okechukwu Chukwu, 2023. "Drivers of Households’ off-the-farm Income Diversification Patterns in Nigeria: Panel Evidence Using General Household Survey Data," Review of Development and Change, , vol. 28(1), pages 67-89, June.
    18. Henry Kankwamba & Mariam Kadzamira & Karl Pauw, 2018. "How diversified is cropping in Malawi? Patterns, determinants and policy implications," Food Security: The Science, Sociology and Economics of Food Production and Access to Food, Springer;The International Society for Plant Pathology, vol. 10(2), pages 323-338, April.
    19. Rimal, N.S. & Kumar, S. & Singh, D.R. & Chahal, V.P. & Shaloo, 2015. "Sources of Growth in Pulses Production in India," Agricultural Economics Research Review, Agricultural Economics Research Association (India), vol. 28(01).
    20. Olale, Edward & Henson, Spencer, 2013. "The impact of income diversification among fishing communities in Western Kenya," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 90-99.
    21. Kene Boun My & Quang-Huy Nguyen & Phu Nguyen-Van & Thi Kim Cuong Pham & Anne Stenger & Tuyen Tiet & Nguyen To-The, 2025. "Farmers' preferences toward organic certification scheme: Evidence from a discrete choice experiment in Northern Vietnam," Working Papers hal-04931827, HAL.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ags:ajaees:357220. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: AgEcon Search (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journalajaees.com/index.php/AJAEES/index .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.