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SIERRA LEONE maq 4ª.indd - agrilife - Europa

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= 0.72) for non-food requirements. In order to<br />

calculate the equivalent poverty line for the<br />

year of our survey (2009), the inflation over<br />

this time period was taken into account. The<br />

inflation rate based on consumer price index<br />

was taken from the calculations of the World<br />

Bank38 . According to this, for the year 2009<br />

the Extreme (Food) Poverty and Full Poverty<br />

Lines can be expressed in monetary terms as Le<br />

648,079 (i.e. 160) and Le 1324,670 (i.e. 326)<br />

per year – Le 1776 (0.44) and Le 3425 (0.89)<br />

per day –, per adult equivalent, respectively.<br />

A household whose expenditure cannot cover<br />

the basic food needs is considered to be<br />

“food poor”; and when the expenditure does<br />

not cover both the basic food and non-food<br />

requirements is considered to be “poor”.<br />

In order to calculate how many of the<br />

surveyed households are falling below these lines<br />

the total household income should be determined.<br />

This includes income from farm production and<br />

also income from off-farm activities. In this study<br />

detailed information is available on the income<br />

coming from the households’ farm production,<br />

however only qualitative data has been collected<br />

for the income from off-farm sources. As stated,<br />

with this information we can quantify to what<br />

extent the income from agricultural production<br />

covers the basic needs of the smallholders and<br />

then determine the level of self-subsistence.<br />

Those households who fall below these poverty<br />

lines considered as poor, unless they do cover<br />

their basic needs from other income sources.<br />

The poorer the household (from a farming<br />

perspective) is the more important will be other<br />

source of income, not necessarily coming from<br />

the farm.<br />

5.2.2 Input factor productivity of smallholders<br />

Productivity is the ratio of some (or all)<br />

valued outputs that an organisation produces<br />

to some (or all) inputs used in the production<br />

38 World Bank database: http://data.worldbank.org/<br />

indicator/FP.CPI.TOTL.ZG<br />

process (Jacobs, et al, 2006). In the present case<br />

study, smallholders’ productivity is determined in<br />

terms of their most important production factors:<br />

labour and land.<br />

To illustrate the situation of farm households<br />

in the survey, productivity is understood as a<br />

measure of output from a production process,<br />

per unit of input (i.e. an apparent or partial<br />

measurement). Consequently, labour productivity<br />

is measured as a ratio of output (in monetary<br />

or physical terms) per working unit (full time<br />

equivalent per year), and land productivity as a<br />

ratio of output per acre.<br />

Generally speaking, technical efficiency<br />

refers to the ability to minimise input use in<br />

the production of a given output vector, or the<br />

ability to obtain maximum output from a given<br />

input vector (Kumbhakar and Knox Lovell, 2000).<br />

Besides, the input factor productivity ratios<br />

described above, a rough measure of technical<br />

efficiency per type of crop is also introduced by<br />

comparing output per worker and surface area<br />

available per worker as illustrated in Figure 20.<br />

Mazoyer (2001) also employs this<br />

comparative procedure to unveil the differences<br />

in terms of varying technological constraints<br />

in agriculture. Since in the Sierra Leone survey<br />

technology access is rather homogenous<br />

throughout the sample, the comparisons are<br />

drawn crop type. This provides information<br />

on how farm households producing the same<br />

crop perform between one another; as well<br />

as information at regional level to compare<br />

overall performance between regions. Thus, a<br />

best management practice within regions may<br />

be observed, and the characteristics of the best<br />

performing farms may also be identified.<br />

Rural poverty reduction and food security: The case of smallholders in Sierra Leone<br />

85

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