Diversification of livelihoods

by Jeremy on June 24, 2009

A 10-year study of Tanzanaia’s Kagera region concludes that:

  • households that have diversified their farming activities, growing food crops for their own consumption, cash crops for sale, and keeping livestock, have found it easiest to escape from poverty
  • households involved in business and trade have also been successful, though this option has only been open to households in better-connected villages with initial endowments of land and other wealth
  • good health and extensive trust networks have helped households move out of poverty
  • illness and agricultural shocks have important negative effects on everyone, except the most well-off

Good news, you might have thought, unless you were loaded for vampire.

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