The Initial Land Endowments And Livelihoods Of Rural Smallholders In Central And Northern Mozambique

This study used two-year partial panel household surveys 2008-2011, to assess household income and poverty trends and their respective drivers, specifically to determining to what extent landholdings have influenced these changes in rural Northern-Central Mozambique. The study concludes that: i) No significant income change in total net household income, poverty level, and landholdings has been observed between the two survey years and ii) Landholdings have significant income effect on income but poverty, suggesting that the income gain resulting from the observed landholdings is not enough to generate sufficient income transition above the poverty line, and iii) welfare was found to have infrastructural, demographic, technological dimensions, the policy implications from this study include:1) developing and promoting agricultural technologies, rural financial services and microcredit, risk coping strategies through establishment development of drought resistant crop varieties to acelerate land expansion, 2) facilitating access to input and output markets through improving and expanding infrastructures, 3) promoting small and medium enterprises with vocational training programs in employable skills, and 4) providing public services (e.g. education and employment) and investing in physical infrastructures (roads and transports).