Author(s): Guduro Beriso, Asefa Tadessea and Geremewu Motuma

Abstract: This paper is about literature review on factors affecting livelihood diversification in Ethiopia and the situation regarding smallholder farmers. It reveals mixed findings of factors affecting the livelihood diversification of smallholders. The paper reviewed the most recent research articles and review papers and 55 documents papers from journals, articles and books were reviewed. In their studies, the researchers used both descriptive measures and econometric analysis. The descriptive part of the review reveals that the livelihood diversification strategies in recent studies conducted in different parts of Ethiopian regions. According to recent studies, smallholders farmer diversify their livelihood through on-farm, nonfarm, and off-farm income-generating activities. In Ethiopia, 83% of small farmers are involved in agricultural activities, and only 27% are involved in 0ff-farm/ non-farm activities. On the other hand, the econometric analysis part of the reviewed articles reveals that sex, age, family size, educational level, access to credit service, remittance-receiving, farmer’s association membership; total annual cash income had significant positive relation with farmers’ livelihood diversification. On the contrary land size, age of family head, Agro-ecology, fertilizer utilizes, number of oxen, tropical livestock units, access to training, access to extension services, dependency ratio showed significant negative correlation with farmers livelihood diversification. To allow for a decent livelihood, the policy of diversification should focus on access to agricultural land, support for storage and expansion, capacity of smallholder farmers through agricultural training, improvement of expansion services, focus on creating a sense of gender, and provision of adequate infrastructure to be considered.

Pages: 21-28 | Views: 932 | Downloads: 458

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