community and household-level income & asset status baseline

Determinants of Income, Asset, Choice of Income Strategies and Participation in
Programs and Organizations
In this section, we investigate the determinants of households’ income, asset, choice
of income strategies and participation in programs and organization with different focus. We
present the results of econometric analyses, which show partial effects of each variable on the
response or outcome of interest, controlling for other factors.
Household Income
Education level higher than primary school increases household income significantly,
as expected (Table 8). Deininger and Okidi (2001) and Appleton (2001) observed the same
results in Uganda. Surprisingly, farmers with primary education do not appear to earn higher
incomes than those with no formal education.
Participation in agricultural and NRM, health and mutual support organizations leads
to higher income. This underscores the importance of programs and organizations and is
consistent with other studies that have shown contribution of organizations in poverty
reduction (Lecomte, and Smillie, 2004). Likewise, contact with extension significantly
increases household income as expected. This positive impact may be due to effect of
extension on increasing agricultural productivity. However, long-term agricultural training
did not have a significant impact on income.
Values of agricultural equipment and livestock both have very strong positive impact
on household income, underscoring the importance of mechanization in enhancing
agricultural productivity. The agricultural equipment included are: bicycles, carts, water
pumps, plow sets, radio, grain mill, dehuskers, sprayers, hoes, motor vehicles, tractors,
motorbikes, etc. Livestock also increase income probably because it can be used to provide
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