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FAO: More rural families earning money
from non-farm work
Accra, June 6, GNA - A growing proportion of rural family
income is coming from non-farm activities such as commerce,
service provision and immigrant remittances.
However, earnings from agriculture continue to be a
fundamental source of livelihood for 90 per cent of rural
households, particularly the poor, according to a report
released on Tuesday in Rome by the UN Food and Agriculture
Organization (FAO) during a seminar on rural incomes.
The report, Rural Income Generating Activities: A Cross
Country Comparison, is part of a larger project on Rural
Income Generating Activities (RIGA) overseen by FAO's
Agricultural Sector in Economic Development Service (ESAE).
A statement released by the FAO Africa Office in Accra on
Wednesday said the report is based on a recently developed
cross-country database of rural household surveys, which
includes information on multiple categories of rural
household income and access to wealth generating assets.
Mr Kostas Stamoulis, ESAE Chief, said: "Non-farm rural
activities, even when more remunerative than agricultural
work, are not accessible to the poorest of households
because they often lack the education, capital and credit
needed to participate in these areas.
“This systematic study of the sources of rural household
income will fill some of the gaps that exist in our
understanding of who has access to what type of income and
such information could be very helpful to policy-makers
looking for ways to reduce poverty."
The statement said the new reports were made possible by a
multi-agency project that saw FAO, the World Bank and the
American University (Washington, DC) working together on the
RIGA project.
The RIGA project combines information on the sources of
rural household income using 23 datasets from 15 countries.
These sources include agriculture and livestock,
non-agricultural wage and self-employment, and public and
private transfers. The project is designed to help
development analysts and practitioners understand rural
household behaviour so they can map pathways out of poverty.
"The project's aim is to contribute to better-informed
policies and programmes for poverty reduction," said Mr
Stamoulis.
GNA
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