02.08.2013 Views

SIERRA LEONE maq 4ª.indd - agrilife - Europa

SIERRA LEONE maq 4ª.indd - agrilife - Europa

SIERRA LEONE maq 4ª.indd - agrilife - Europa

SHOW MORE
SHOW LESS

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

YUMPU automatically turns print PDFs into web optimized ePapers that Google loves.

5 Survey Methodology<br />

82<br />

boundaries. This means that the labour, as<br />

the most important production factor, is also<br />

perceived to be common and shared. In fact, the<br />

practice of these villagers is to set up working<br />

groups which attend different plots on a rotational<br />

base. This sharing scheme implies that one day<br />

a farmer hires labour then the other day he/she<br />

goes to work on other plots as hired labour. In<br />

this sense, labour exchange within the village<br />

can be assumed to level out and be balanced on<br />

a yearly base. By following this practice, hired<br />

labour may also be assumed at zero wages in<br />

income calculations. However, in the case of<br />

cash tree cropping, it is more common to pay in<br />

monetary terms rather than through exchanges,<br />

particularly for peak collection periods where<br />

labour shortage occurs (Sesay et al., 2004).<br />

Rice as the main component of Sierra Leones<br />

diet fulfils an indispensable role for achieving<br />

and maintaining food security, beyond its role<br />

as income generating commodity. In the case of<br />

self-subsistence producers, largely located in the<br />

Northern districts, it was confirmed that despite<br />

inter-cropping practices, rice is the dominant crop<br />

for own consumption. The latter is reinforced by<br />

the lack of employment alternatives and no real<br />

off-farm job-market. For households who besides<br />

rice and other staples produce cash crops (coffee<br />

and cocoa), the hired labour costs was actually<br />

accounted for at the market equivalent wage rate,<br />

since (i) a labour market do exist in those areas,<br />

mainly in the Eastern districts, where production<br />

systems often include coffee and cocoa, and (ii)<br />

both cash commodities are mainly produced<br />

to be marketed and require substantial labour<br />

input during collection periods. The estimation<br />

of opportunity costs based on the actual labour<br />

market constraints of both the Northern and<br />

Eastern districts, together with the valuation<br />

of self-subsistence production allows for an<br />

improved analysis of the specific context of<br />

(semi)subsistence farming-based economies and<br />

comparison of costs and output value in real<br />

terms, alternatively to market prices.<br />

As identified in the literature review, farm<br />

households access seeds mainly through private<br />

sector purchases (HIS 2003/04). However,<br />

farmers manage to secure approximately 24.4%<br />

of utilised seeds (see Table 13) without engaging<br />

in monetary transactions by relying either on own<br />

Table 20. Comparative Summary of the assumptions on the income calculation approaches: Neoclassical<br />

Approach (NA) & Peasant Farming (PF) Approach<br />

Neoclassical Approach Peasant Farming Approach<br />

Objective Profit Maximisation Simple Reproduction of Household<br />

Market Assumption Competitive Markets<br />

Output Valuation<br />

Sales<br />

Consumption and Stocks<br />

Input Cost Valuation<br />

Market price<br />

Market price<br />

Competitive Product Market & No Labour<br />

Market<br />

Market price<br />

10% higher than market price<br />

Household Labour Wage (Opportunity Cost) No cost (Opportunity Cost = 0)<br />

Hired Labour<br />

Seeds<br />

Livestock sale<br />

Livestock purchase<br />

Tools<br />

Land rent<br />

Wage<br />

Market price<br />

Market price<br />

Depreciation cost<br />

Depreciation cost<br />

Market price equivalent of bushels of rice<br />

paid<br />

Note: Market price and the wage is the value as reported in the survey (see Appendix V).<br />

No cost – Food cropping<br />

Wage – Cash tree cropping<br />

Market price<br />

Market price<br />

Depreciation cost<br />

Depreciation cost<br />

Market price equivalent of bushels of rice<br />

paid

Hooray! Your file is uploaded and ready to be published.

Saved successfully!

Ooh no, something went wrong!