September 2004

A livelihoods approach for analysing the farm power asset base at the household level

by Clare Bishop-Sambrook

The paper reports on the use of the livelihoods approach to conduct a detailed analysis of farm power in smallholder households in sub-Saharan Africa. Fieldwork was conducted in 14 communities in seven countries. Households were classified according to their main source of farm power for primary tillage and this distinction provided the framework for analysis. A qualitative scoring system was used to value a household’s asset base in order to enable comparisons to be made between the asset bases of different farm power groups, both within a community and between communities.

A strong association was found between the source of farm power, household wealth and livelihood outcomes. Households with the poorest asset base tended to rely on family labour as their sole source of farm power. Their weakest assets were their financial and physical assets. The asset-based wealth of households hiring draught animals was slightly stronger than households using family labour. Draught animal owners, hirers of labour and hirers of tractors had a much more robust asset base, making most gains in their financial and physical assets, and socially as they moved into leadership positions in the community. However, their asset-based wealth fell short of that of tractor owners. Households with a stronger asset-based wealth often had a range of livelihood strategies and achieved livelihood outcomes which were rated highly by the communities, such as food security, the ability to send children to school, to afford modern medication, and to purchase farm inputs.

Recommendations for the immediate and short term, place priority on protecting livelihoods through reducing the vulnerability and ensuring the survival of households most at risk from losing their farm power assets. Activities in the medium to longer term focus on maximizing the potential of existing power sources and supporting households and communities as they adopt new sources of farm power.

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For related information, please see:

Farm Power and Smallholder Livelihoods in Sub-Saharan Africa