The farm household model has played a central role in improving the understanding of small-scale agricultural households and non-farm enterprises. Under the assumptions that all current and future markets exist and that farmers treat all prices as given, the model simplifies households' simultaneous production and consumption decisions into a recursive form in which production can be treated as...

The extent to which farm families engage in off-farm employment activities is a topic of central importance to understanding the financial well-being of farm households. The degree of financial stress experienced by U.S. farm families is always a concern to policy makers. Yet, policy considerations often ignore the substantial involvement of most farm households in nonfarm labor markets. It has...

Arresting land degradation in impoverished rural environments is a global priority. Restoration ecology provides a promising framework, but it will need to be modified when applied to a rural development setting. There is a need for increased understanding of social dynamics in land restoration, however few systematic studies exist. This paper explores the social factors influencing restoration...

INTRODUCTION: Governments throughout the developing world have a keen interest in diversifying their rural economies. One basis for this desire concern that reliance on a few crops for cash income can lead to instability in income that threatens rural livelihoods – has undoubtedly been accentuated by the worldwide price crises of 2007/08 and 2010/11. It is also true that, for many households th...

In Ireland there is great demand from policy makers and researchers for data on total farm household incomes. Availability of such data is not always as detailed as required. In this document, current farm household statistical data sources as they occur in Ireland are reviewed. Variation in definition, in particular how the farm household is defined may reveal differences in results. The metho...

The study examined the patterns and determinants of agricultural credit use among farming households in Oyo State, Nigeria. The primary data used for the study were obtained from a cross sectional survey of 114 farm households drawn by multi-stage random sampling technique. Both descriptive statistics and multiple regressions were used to analyze the data obtained. The study revealed that 47.4%...

Uaiene, Rafael N., M.S., Purdue University, December, 2004. Maize and Sorghum Technologies and the Effects of Marketing Strategies on Farmers’ Income in Mozambique. Major Professor: John H. Sanders, College of Agriculture. About three-quarter of Mozambicans depend on agriculture for their livelihoods. Maize and sorghum are major crops and food staples. Given limited off-farm employment opportun...

Farm households in developing countries are generally credit constrained. This forces them to simultaneously take production and consumption decisions. In this paper, a two-period lifecycle model of the farm household is constructed and the household’s investment response to changes in land and agricultural output prices are derived theoretically. It is shown that in the absence of credit marke...

This paper looks at the effect of access to off-farm employment opportunities on household exposure to unexpected shocks originating in the agricultural economy. Farm households with improved access to both migrant and local labor markets are better able to cope with shocks to agricultural production. The risk-coping benefits of improved access to off-farm markets are not shared evenly within o...

OBJECTIVE The objective of this study is to test the extent to which, under different opportunities for market participation, the diversity of plant species rural households grow or collect (on-farm diversity), and the variety of foods mothers purchase (market diversity) are associated with their dietary diversity. METHODS Rural households from three districts in southern Benin were interview...