Chapter 5
Analysis of livelihood asset base of individual farm-power groups

The following two chapters focus on key aspects of the livelihoods system of individual farm power groups. In this chapter, attention is paid to the composition and strength of the asset base which lies at the heart of livelihoods analysis and the role of the supporting infrastructure. Farm-based livelihood strategies and the livelihood outcomes achieved by the different farm power groups are explored in Chapter 6.

Composition of asset base of individual farm-power groups

The livelihoods framework encompasses household assets (human, natural, physical, financial and social) and their use in farming, non-farm activities and other strategies used by a household to make a living (DFID, 1998).

A qualitative scoring system was used to value a household’s asset base in order to facilitate comparison between the asset base of different farm-power groups, both within a community and between communities. At each field site, the five livelihood assets of the different farm-power groups were scored separately, out of a maximum of five points per asset group, with a maximum of 25 points per farm-power group. Further details about the conceptual framework and the scoring system is discussed in Annex 2, and individual asset scores by field site are presented in the three case studies.

Table 9 presents the asset scores for each farm-power group averaged across all sites in which the power group exists. Households with the smallest asset base tend to rely on family labour as their source of farm power. Their weakest assets are their financial and physical assets. Their human resource base is also weak. Their relative strength lies in their social assets; indeed this asset has the smallest difference in score between the family labour group and tractor owners.

The asset-based wealth of households hiring draught animals is slightly stronger than that of households using family labour. DAP owners, hirers of labour and hirers of tractors have a much more robust asset base. They make most gains in their financial and physical assets, and socially as they move into leadership positions in the community. However, their asset-based wealth falls short of that of tractor owners who command the strongest asset base, particularly in terms of physical, financial and natural assets.

TABLE 9
Average value of asset base of households by source of power for primary tillage

Notes:

¹ Data have been averaged across all the sites in which the particular household type exists. Full details for asset values per site in Annex 2.

² Disaggregated data not available for hand-power households in Kapchesombe and Msingisi; characteristics of households hiring labour included in family labour group.

³ Disaggregated data not available for households hiring either DAP or tractors in Babatokuma and Mvomero; characteristics of households hiring DAP included in tractor hire group.

⁴ Disaggregated data not available for households hiring either tractors or DAP in Msingisi; characteristics of households hiring tractors included in DAP hire group.

⁵ Difference between scores for family hand-power group and tractor owner group per asset type (usually representing lowest and highest scores).

Note: Further details in Table 9.

The relative strengths and weaknesses of individual assets may be illustrated in an asset pentagon (Figure 5). The overall strength of an asset base for a specific farm-power group is indicated by the area of the pentagon. The dominance of the asset-based wealth of tractor owners and the relative poverty of households relying on family labour are evident, particularly in terms of their financial and physical assets.

Review of individual household farm-power assets

Four livelihood assets have direct implications for the use of different sources of farm power, namely human, physical, financial and social assets. The use of natural assets is considered in the context of livelihood strategies in Chapter 6.

Human assets

Household composition

The composition of the household plays a crucial role in agricultural production. This is true even for households owning DAP or tractors because primary tillage is the only mechanized operation. In some communities, a large household (achieved through polygamy or the extended family) is a livelihood strategy that is adopted to ensure that sufficient labour is available to cover peak workloads (for example, in Ojo, Nigeria, and Zambia). In others, such as Gyangyanadze (Ghana), a large family is considered a drain on household income as it inhibits the possibility of hiring tractors. The presence of daughters may provide a means for acquiring access to farm power through dowry payments (for example, draught animals in Zambia; or the labour of the groom in Nigeria). Events that draw family labour away from farm work, such as education, migration, off-farm employment, or prolonged ill health (Box 2), may compromise a household’s ability to farm effectively in the short term. However, in the longer term, households may benefit from better-educated household members, remittances and the ability to engage in non-farm employment.

Source: Lyimo and Semgalawe (2002).

Source: Sichembe and Mukuka (2001).

Female-headed households

The sex of the household head can be a major determinant of farm-power status. Female-headed households (FHHs) are present in all communities. They are more prevalent in the field sites in eastern and southern Africa, where they typically account for 20 - 30 percent of all households. Their presence is symptomatic of male migration to urban areas, a high incidence of HIV/AIDS resulting in early widowhood, and, occasionally, divorce. Households headed by widowers are less common because men tend to remarry after the death of their wives and, in some areas, polygamy is common.

Households headed by women face three challenges in accessing sources of farm power. First, the loss of assets typically associated with the process of becoming a FHH through widowhood erodes their farm-power base (Box 3). Consequently, they are usually found among the poorer households in any community. Second, they usually have a very weak financial base, lack collateral, and find it difficult to secure credit if they wish to purchase draught animals or implements. Third, although women are familiar with using DAP for transport, they generally lack experience and skills in using DAP technology for farm work (with the exception of a few field sites such as Kacaboi in Uganda and Mvomero in the United Republic of Tanzania).

However, out of necessity, traditions are changing. Where FHHs have access to external funds, such as remittances from children or windfall gains, they purchase and use draught animals (as has happened in Nteme in Zambia). In Ethiopia, a few FHHs have started to plough on their own (Box 4). At some of the field sites in west Africa, some FHHs overcome the constraints of a small family labour base by hiring tractors.

Skills and education

Tractor owners are usually better educated and have a broader range of skills than the other farm-power groups. Many have attended secondary school, some have tertiary education, and others have skills in non-farm professions that they gained prior to working in agriculture.

In contrast, many hoe cultivators are illiterate or semi-literate, and have attended only a few years of primary schooling. Nevertheless, they have a range of livelihood skills that enable them to utilize the natural resource base for farming and non-farm livelihood activities such as fishing, forestry, pottery and handicrafts.

Source: Berhe et al. (2001).

Physical assets

Range of tools and implements

The number of hand tools varies according to the size and the wealth of the household. Most households own an essential range of hand tools that differs slightly according to farming system and region. The universal tools are the hand hoe (usually short-handled), axe, panga/machete, sickle and, only in west Africa, the cutlass (Box 5). Even tractor-owning households maintain a full complement of hand tools because so few operations are mechanized. Ideally, households own a few axes, pangas/machetes or cutlasses and a sufficient number of hoes and sickles for each member of the family who is able to work with them. In practice, poorer households do not have enough of the essential implements for all household members and some resort to borrowing from neighbours. Worn-out hoes and cutlasses are passed down from men to their wives and children for use for lighter tasks.

The range of other tools available within farming communities is usually limited. DAP owners have mould-board ploughs and carts; and tractor owners have disc ploughs and harrows, carts or trailers. Other tillage equipment (such as tine chisel ploughs and subsoilers) and secondary-tillage equipment (such as ridgers, planters or weeders) are rarely found. Annex 3 (Tables 1 and 2) gives details of equipment inventories per site.

Gender analysis of use and ownership of tools and implements

There are strong gender-based associations with the use and ownership of tools and equipment, in part reflecting gender differences in the performance of farm and household tasks. Women have access to many of the basic hand tools, such as hoes and sickles, which reflects their involvement in digging, weeding and harvesting (Box 5). They also dominate the use of post-harvest equipment as food preparation is one of their main daily household activities. Men use axes, pangas/machetes, hoes and spraying equipment. They own most of the hand tools, even if they do not use them themselves (Box 6 and Table 10).

Men are the main users of draught animals, the sole users of tractors and the sole owners of both. They also dominate access to associated services, such as training, repairs and maintenance, veterinary and extension. Annex 3 (Tables 3 and 4) provides further details about the use and ownership of tools by field site.

Replacement rates

The quality of tools, the frequency and nature of their use, and the wealth of the household determine their rate of replacement. Items in regular use, such as hoes, sickles pangas/machetes, cutlasses and plough shares, are replaced every one to three years. More durable implements, such as axes and sprayers, require replacement in the medium term (six years) whereas maize mills and ox carts last up to ten years. Ploughs for draught animals and tractors are replaced at interval of three to six years. Better-quality tools are replaced less frequently (Box 7).

Source: Kumwenda and Nkhoma-Mbawa (2002).

Poorer households postpone purchases, especially if they are able to borrow from their neighbours (as noted in Kacaboi, Uganda). Annex 3 (Table 5) provides further details about replacement rates.

Financial assets

Cash, savings, remittances and access to credit determine a household’s ability to purchase and maintain tools, draught animals, tractors and implements, and to hire farm-power services. Men, in their role as head of the household, usually make decisions regarding the purchase of new tools.

Hand tools are purchased using cash earned from the sale of farm produce and petty trading. Women contribute to the purchase of tools in some communities when they have their own incomes (e.g. in Nigeria and Zambia). Women also participate in hiring farm-power services: labour (Babatokuma, Gyangyanadze, Ojo, Sanchitagi and Kacaboi), draught animals (Babatokuma and Kapchesombe) and tractors (Gyangyanadze, Sanchitagi and Mvomero). Annex 3 (Table 6) provides further details about expenditure patterns.

TABLE 10
Use and ownership of farm hand tools, by field site

Notes:

Percentages may add to more than 100 at any one site because some tools are used or owned equally by women and men.

Percentages rounded to nearest 5 percent.

Source: Annex 2.

Men are solely responsible for all other expenditure associated with farm power, from buying draught animals, tractors and implements through to paying for equipment repairs and maintenance. The money is usually raised from a farmer’s own resources, sometimes with assistance from relatives or using credit. Group purchase of tractors was encountered only at Sanchitagi (Nigeria).

Social assets

A wide variety of organizations and groups exist at the study sites. They include: groups focusing on community activities, such as circumcision and burial ceremonies; welfare groups providing members with essential household items, such as salt and soap, during times of hardship or following childbirth; groups improving access to farm inputs, in particular seed and fertilizer, through the provision of credit; and groups generating income from farming or non-farm activities. Money raised through group ventures is often distributed to members, who may use it to purchase hand tools or hire farm-power services for their individual farms.

In addition, many communities have arrangements that, to varying degrees, specifically focus on overcoming farm-power constraints. Distinctions may be drawn between arrangements that: (i) tackle farm-power shortages on an individual basis; (ii) draw strength through operating in groups; and (iii) offer farm-power services to others on a commercial basis. Each type of arrangement exists within each farm-power group but commercial considerations tend to dominate the tractor groups. The ways in which households may access different types of farm power are summarized below. Site-specific examples are presented in Annex 2, Case Study D.

Social assets for accessing hand power

The most common way for poorer households to address farm-power constraints is through forming informal reciprocal groups and working together on one another’s farms for labour-intensive tasks, such as digging, planting, weeding, harvesting and threshing (further details in Annex 2, Box 8). In Kokate Marachere (Ethiopia), group activities extend beyond immediate farm tasks to include soil erosion control and house construction. People join such groups because they are better motivated when they work with others, thereby making the hand-power system more productive. The benefits of membership sometimes have a welfare dimension. When a member is sick, the others work on the farm to save the crops. This feature was noted by one group in Ghana and two women’s groups in the United Republic of Tanzania (the latter also assist one another with household chores in times of crisis). Only a few communities, such as Kapchescombe (Uganda), do not have a tradition of reciprocal groups as a means of reducing labour bottlenecks.

Reciprocal arrangements occasionally operate at an individual household level, such as the wonfel and jigi systems in Ethiopia. The latter arrangement is particularly useful for providing assistance to the needy during farm operations because beneficiary farmers do not necessarily have to reciprocate by performing the same kind of operation.

Labour groups also operate on a commercial basis. For example, in Ghana, young women and men hire themselves out in a group as casual labourers for farming activities. This is seen as a good source of employment for young people and a means for social advancement.

Social assets for accessing DAP

Reflecting the vital role played by draught animals in many farming systems in Ethiopia, informal individual arrangements enable owners of a single ox or pairs of oxen to team up with others in order to utilize their extremely limited farm-power base on a reciprocal basis (Annex 2, Box 9). Similar arrangements exist in Malawi and are used by individual farmers either when they have lost part of their power base (draught animals or implements) or when they are in the process of establishing their farm-power base in a piecemeal manner.

More usually, DAP owners form groups to improve their draught-animal management skills, access services (such as credit) and, in addition, receive the benefits of external support. Group membership includes women and men in the United Republic of Tanzania but only men, as the owners of cattle, in Zambia and Ethiopia. In addition to addressing their own farm-power needs, some groups operate hire services for others. In Habru Seftu (Ethiopia), oxen owners’ associations, dating from the 1960s, provide mutual insurance in the event of the death of their work oxen. These associations are regarded as the most important social organization in the community.

Note: maximum possible score = 25. Further details in Table 9 and the case studies presented in Annex 2.

Source: Data have been averaged across all the sites in which the particular farm power group exists.

Social assets for accessing tractors

Groups serving the interests of tractor owners differ from those for hand power and DAP (Annex 2, Box 10). Their membership is all male and represents the richer members of the community. While there is an element of service to the community through tractor hiring, there is also a degree of self-interest, with members enjoying better access to these services than non-members. The tractor owners associations in Babatokuma (Ghana) and Sanchitagi (Nigeria) operate as cartels, with owners coming together to set hire charges for the following season.

Association between source of farm power and strength of asset base

There is a strong association between the source of farm power and household wealth. Households that rely solely on family labour are invariably among the poorest, with a total asset score of less than 10 points (Figure 6). Households hiring DAP are among the middle-poor; DAP owners, and tractor hirers among the lower rich. Tractor owners are among the richest households with an asset score of more than 20.

While households using family labour are among the poorest in any one community, the depth of their asset-related poverty varies between communities (Table 11). Hoe cultivators in some communities have a stronger asset base than DAP owners in other communities. Similarly, some DAP owners are as well endowed with assets as households hiring tractors. However, none matches the wealth of the richest tractor owners.

Supporting infrastructure

The supporting infrastructure, such as extension and financial services, plays a key role in enabling farmers to make effective and sustained use of farm-power resources. There are five essential elements of the supporting infrastructure (examples from the field sites are presented in Box 8):

• providing farmers with access to knowledge and information, either about improved farm-power technologies in a drive to support the process of commercialization of the sector or about tillage equipment suitable for conservation agriculture;

• facilitating access to financial services, which many farmers require in order to purchase hand tools as well as DAP implements and tractors;

• ensuring the availability of appropriate implements, manufactured either by local artisans or the formal sector, supported by adaptive research, and retailed to farming communities;

• skilled and well-equipped maintenance and repair service sector;

• a supply of draught animals and veterinary services for DAP communities.

TABLE 11
Distribution of farm power groups by asset-based wealth

Notes:

The number within a cell represents the number of field sites with asset scores in that range.

The large number of sites with DAP owners is because the community in Habru Seftu identified three different types of households owning oxen and each has a different livelihood asset score.

In line with government withdrawal from many areas of economic activity, most of the activities associated with supporting the use of tractors, such as the supply of equipment, and repair and maintenance services, occur in the private sector. The only significant exception is operator and technician training, which sometimes takes place in the public sector (Ghana and Uganda). In contrast, DAP still enjoys strong and widespread government support in many countries through extension and training (Ghana, Nigeria, Uganda, United Republic of Tanzania and Zambia), and restocking (Uganda), complemented by NGO initiatives. The promotion of DAP is often linked to the popularization of reduced tillage and conservation agriculture in eastern and southern Africa (Uganda, United Republic of Tanzania and Zambia).

Multipurpose organizations

A coherent supporting infrastructure is often achieved most effectively through multipurpose organizations. Under the Farm-level Applied Research Methods for Smallholders in East and Southern Africa (FARMESA) project, farmers groups in Kacaboi (Uganda) field tested technologies, ran their own ox-breeding programme, managed microcredit and savings schemes, and organized information and communication activities. The demonstration centre at Mpatsanjoka (Malawi) played a pivotal role in the 1970s and 1980s, informing and training farmers from Mwansambo in the use of draught animals and facilitating the purchase of animals and implements on loan. The Animal Traction Network, Mvomero Division, United Republic of Tanzania, provides a network for strengthening and promoting DAP in the division, exchanging information about DAP, and assisting groups in securing external assistance for training and implements. The network also assists in securing loans for members of animal traction groups from the Rural Savings Bank (Figure 7).

Availability

The significance of a coherent infrastructure to support technology use is demonstrated in the distances travelled to access tools, implements and repair services. Hand tools and DAP implements are generally available within the immediate locality, acquired from local markets and trading centres, although specialist items of equipment, such as sprayers, are often only available at regional centres. Many hand tools and DAP implements are industrially made, although local blacksmiths still make hoes in Sanchitagi, Nteme and Simpuande; axes in Lodjwa and Mwansambo; small cutlasses in Ojo; sickles in Kokate Marachere; and mareshas in Ethiopia. Blacksmiths have the advantage of being able to adapt tools to local needs. However, their products are often perceived to be of inferior quality to massmanufactured tools and are purchased by poorer households. Elsewhere, local blacksmiths have disappeared (for example, Mvomero).

Source: Community estimates at field site.

On average, farmers travel 5 - 35 km to buy hand tools, 10 - 60 km for draught animals and implements, and 85 - 300 km to purchase tractors, implements and spare parts. Further details are presented in Annex 3, Table 7. Figure 8 presents an example from Babatokuma (Ghana).