SIERRA LEONE maq 4ª.indd - agrilife - Europa
SIERRA LEONE maq 4ª.indd - agrilife - Europa
SIERRA LEONE maq 4ª.indd - agrilife - Europa
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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