Rural Income Generating Activities: Whatever Happened to the Institutional Vacuum? Evidence from Ghana, Guatemala, Nicaragua and Vietnam

Abstract

This paper assesses the current rural development practice against the main trends in recent rural development thinking, based on evidence from four country case studies. While much progress has been made in understanding the need to look beyond only agriculture for the promotion of productive activities in rural areas, and the 'institutional vacuum' consistently identified in the rural non-farm literature is gradually being filled, much remains to be done. One aspect on which more research is particularly needed is the development of better mechanisms to promote productive investment rather than just social investment and to assess the appropriate level-community, regional, national-at which to do this.

Transient rural livelihoods and poverty in Ghana

“…Other hypothesised reasons for diversification include diminishing returns to labour, market failure, ex ante risk management, ex post copping with adverse shocks, availability of social insurance, and economies of scope in production (Ellis, 2000b;Barrett et al, 2001b). These factors are influenced by contextual factorsdclimate/agroecology, macroeconomic policies, political systems, and institutional arrangements (Scoones, 1998;Barrett et al, 2001b;Bryceson, 2002a;Bryceson, 2002b;Havnevik et al, 2007;Zezza et al, 2009;Ellis, 2010).…”

“…Rural economies of most sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) countries are still largely agrarian, agriculture employs the largest proportion of the workforce and contributes the largest share of household income (Zezza et al, 2009;Davis et al, 2010). In Ghana, the most recent population census (Ghana Statistical Service, 2012) shows that about 42 percent of the economically active labour force are employed in agriculture.…”

“…Barrett et al, 2001a;Wouterse and Taylor, 2008;Lay et al, 2009;Stifel, 2010) and Ghana (e.g. Zezza et al, 2009;Anriquez and Daidone, 2010;Davis et al, 2010) point to household involvement in pluriactivity. Thus, 'household diversification, not specialisation, is the norm' (Davis et al, 2010, pp.…”

Factors Influencing Involvement in Nonfarm Income Generating Activities Among Local Farmers: The Case of Ughelli South Local Government Area of Delta State, Nigeria

“…These findings support the views of Reardon et al (2001) that nonfarm activities seems to offer a pathway out of poverty if nonfarm opportunities could be seized by the rural poor. Zezza et al (2007) noted that governments and donor agencies are attempting to tackle the non income dimensions of poverty through education and access to basic amenities.…”

Impact of off-farm activities on technical efficiency: evidence from maize producers of eastern Ethiopia

“…As emphasized by Lanjouw and Lanjouw (2001), the main options available for the unemployed rural community in this scenario are either migration to urban areas or engagement in off-farm activities in rural areas. Actually, smallholder farmers in developing countries rarely rely on a full-time agricultural work; rather, they often maintain a portfolio of activities in which off-farm activities are an important contributions to their well-being (Barrett et al 2001;Foster and Rosenzweig 2004;Smith et al 2005;Wouterse and Taylor 2008;Lanjouw and Murgai 2009;Zezza et al 2009;Davis et al 2010;Haggblade et al 2010).…”