SIERRA LEONE maq 4ª.indd - agrilife - Europa

improved management strategies at pre and postharvest
stages are crucial.
6.2 Evaluation of the economic
performance and viability of
smallholders
In order to evaluate the economic
performance and the viability of farm households
at farm level, first the smallholders were grouped
into different farm types depending on their crop
orientation. This farm typology is important in
order to understand to which extent the farm
production system affects the performance of the
farm households given the resource availability
they have (6.2.1). Once a detailed typology is in
place, the results of the farm household income
calculation are presented (6.2.2): i.e. the Farm
Net Income (and Cash Income) calculations at
farm level and Gross Margin (output value and
input costs) calculations at crop production
level, focusing especially on rice as the main
staple food and coffee and cocoa tree cropping
as the main cash crops. Then, economic results
are analysed in relation to the reproduction
threshold (in order to assess farm viability)
and the poverty line (for evaluating household
viability) (6.2.3).
6.2.1 Farm typology
The typology of smallholders is based on
clustering them according to their similarity/
difference in terms of socio-economic and
agro-environmental characteristics. In order to
characterise the farms within the regions – first
step of the typology - the main criteria often used
are biophysical conditions, resource endowments,
land use, specialisation, intensification, farm
managements and socio-economic conditions
as well as orientation of production activities
(market, self-consumption), position of the
household in the ‘farm developmental cycle’
(Forbes, 1949; cited by Crowley, 1997) and main
sources of the income for the household (Tittonell
et al., 2010).
The description of farm households in
section 6.1 shows that within regions very
similar socio-economic and agro-environmental
characteristics are shared among smallholders.
Differences between farm households are
mainly found in terms of crop specialisation and
crop mix. The differences in crop orientation
also mark a difference concerning production
activities for marketing or self-consumption.
Thus, the smallholders were typified according
to these two main criteria. The steps followed
to set up the farm typology for the Sierra Leone
survey consisted of first classifying the main
production activities (in terms of crop mixes)
across all surveyed farms for the Northern and
Eastern districts. Secondly, farms were split
into farm types according to their dominant
production orientation for either market or selfconsumption.
In the studied areas the main crop
production activities are: rice production
(upland and lowland rice), tree cropping
(including cash crops: cocoa, coffee and selfconsumption
tree crops: oil palm), and other
food production (including all other food
crops produced e.g. vegetables, cassava).
Consequently, farm typology was initially
defined based on the mix of these three main
crop production activities. Accordingly, farms
may as a first step fit into one of the following
options:
- rice only,
- rice & other food crops
- rice & tree
- rice & other food crops & tree, and
- tree only.
The number of farms and the proportion
of the total area devoted under each of the
categories described above for all surveyed farms
are illustrated in Figure 39 and Figure 40.
It can be seen that the majority of the
households base their farm production on mixed
cropping system. The most dominant ones are i)
Rural poverty reduction and food security: The case of smallholders in Sierra Leone
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