Cocoa Production and Rural Livelihood Outcomes: A Sustainable Livelihood Framework and Binary Regression Analysis among Smallholder Farmers

The study assessed the effect of cocoa production on the livelihoods of smallholder farmers in Kyela district in Mbeya region. The study employed a cross-sectional design in the collection of data from the sample of 334 smallholder farmers. A stratified sampling technique was used in the sampling of respondents whereby the proportion random sampling was used in selecting respondents. The Binary logistic regression was used to analyse the effects of cocoa production on the farmers’ livelihoods. Findings indicated that improvement in farmers’ livelihoods were highly enhanced by education (0.74, p = 0.001), quantity produced (0.65, p = 0. 003) and size of land (0.51, p = 0.010). Similarly, access to credit, market price and ownership of farm equipment by farmers indicated to have positive significant association with the farmers’ livelihood. This implies that provision of more knowledge and expanding land size accompanied by access to financial resource could increase the possibility of improving the livelihoods of smallholder farmers. The study concludes that, access to financial, human and physical resources improves the livelihoods of farmers in the district. Thus, more investment in education and strategies aiming at increasing the market access in term of process and financial resources will enable farmers to produce more and earn income to improve their livelihoods.