Land and heterogenous constraints nexus income diversification strategies in Ethiopia: systematic review

Abstract

Background Agriculture is a key to Africa’s future. With alarming population growth, the quest for land increases not only for farming, but also for housing, and the building of industries. Likewise, Ethiopian highlands, cultivated landholding sizes are very small and the land-to-man ratio is declining over time. This exposes the young rural population to facing severe land constraints, poverty, and food insecurity. In addition, constraints facing rural households are inevitably varied and diverse. Hence, this paper examines an in-depth and systematic review of how the rural economy responds to the existing land constraints and what specifically drives them for income diversification outlooks; accumulative or survival strategies in the spatial and temporal dimensions. Method We have used a systematic review with concept definitions and a qualitative approach that relies on the analysis of current literature and deductive logical reasoning to generate a comprehensive scientific understanding of a topic that can capitalize information for future research and policies. Different inclusion and exclusion criteria were applied and filtered pertinent articles to this study in countrywide verdicts. Result The burgeoning literature underscores farm sizes are strongly and positively correlated with net farm income and overall livelihood options, and land constraint leads to rural poverty. One of the pressing issues in rural, as well as urban areas, is that millions of small-scale farmers are becoming landless, and forced as daily laborers for other income sources or joining the already massively overloaded urban and peri-urban low-productivity services sector. In addition, skill, capital (financial and physical), and multiple constraints coupled with the small land sizes including high unemployment, social tension, migration and crowding out the nearest towns. Further, findings pointed out that rural market failures—particularly in the areas of land and finance—force poorer subpopulations to choose strategies with demonstrably lower returns, while wealthier ones are engaging in higher returns with lower marginal and entry costs of participation. Hence, push-and-pull factors of off-farm and non-farm engagements are the survival strategies and persuade the social welfare of the poor. Conclusion With heterogenous constraints, diversification patterns reflect people's voluntary asset exchanges and asset allocation across diverse activities to attain the best possible balance of projected returns and risk exposure given the restrictions they confront due to missing or incomplete markets for land, credit, or labor. Particular emphasis for the vibrant income diversification strategies should be set in and policymakers must stimulate buoyant rural economies, with robust non-farm and off-farm income and innovative farming practices. Hence, the poor must gain access to the growing market niches and basic infrastructure development. Smooth and unconstrained labor markets provide one important bridge linking the rural poor to growing non-farm opportunities.

Farmer’s Perceptions of Agroforestry Practices, Contributions to Rural Household Farm Income, and Their Determinants in Sodo Zuria District, Southern Ethiopia

“…Te coefcient value indicates that, with all other variables kept constant, increasing the size of the farm by one unit (1 ha) increases the income generated by agroforestry by 57406.97 ETB. Tis is because when there is a large amount of land, there will be more component diversifcation, which increases the system's income and is consistent with the discovery of new components [148][149][150][151]. According to the fndings of [58,138], increasing the components of agroforestry can increase the system's income, but the diversifcation of the component is directly afected by the farm's size.…”

Drivers of income diversification among rural households in the Ethiopian central highlands

“…The distinction between the definition of on‐farm and non‐farm reflects sectoral classification derived from the usual national accounting practices whereas the on‐farm and off‐farm difference reflect the spatial distribution of activities (Barrett, Bezuneh, et al, 2001; Barrett, Reardon, & Webb, 2001; Etea et al, 2019; Tadele, 2021). On‐farm activities involve either growing (cropping, livestock husbandry, fishing, woodlot production) or collecting, processing, and selling, and are generally named primary production processes that use land, water, labor, and physical and financial capital to produce raw materials (Barbieri & Mahoney, 2009; Khanal, 2018; Tadele, 2021). Income (usually wage) from off‐farm activities is generated away from one's land and uses family unskilled labor (Barrett, Bezuneh, et al, 2001; Barrett, Reardon, & Webb, 2001; Holden et al, 2004).…”

“…Income (usually wage) from off‐farm activities is generated away from one's land and uses family unskilled labor (Barrett, Bezuneh, et al, 2001; Barrett, Reardon, & Webb, 2001; Holden et al, 2004). Income from non‐farm activities is generated from secondary sector production processes that use financial or manufactured capital and semi‐skilled labor to produce services such as trade, banking, carpentry, construction, transport, and housing (Etea et al, 2019; Tadele, 2021; Woldehanna & Oskam, 2001). Diversification into on‐farm, off‐farm, and non‐farm does not yield the same returns, and not all rural households have equal access to more profitable activities (Barrett, Bezuneh, et al, 2001; Barrett, Reardon, & Webb, 2001; Djido & Shiferaw, 2018; Holden et al, 2004).…”

“…Several previous studies have shown that rural households adopt income diversification to reduce and cope with agricultural risks, sustainable farming and livelihoods, and employment. A systematic review by Tadele (2021), suggests that ID is a key strategy for ex‐ante risk management or ex‐post coping with climate and market shocks. A study by Akhtar et al (2021) in Punjab of Pakistan reported about 50% of rural households used ID for dealing with maize production risks, and a study by Achiba (2018) in Kenya reported that pastoralists used ID for managing pastoral livestock production risks.…”