Rural Development Policies and Sustainable Land Use in the ...

ASSET DISTRIBUTION AND LIVELIHOOD STRATEGIES IN THE HILLSIDES OF HONDURAS 47
of land on average, which is slightly more
than households in cluster 4, but they are the
poorest group among all households, earning
an average of just US$0.15 per person
per day (Table 4.8). The explanation lies in
the fact that these households rely nearly exclusively
on basic grains production that has
low profitability (partially caused by limited
natural assets in terms of quantity and quality).
They tend to be located at high elevations
and on steep slopes, and have little in
terms of other productive assets (Table 4.9).
These households also have relatively low
physical assets and work little outside their
own farms, despite somewhat above-average
market access. The probability of a female
head is highest for this cluster (see also
Box 4.2).
The livelihoods strategy of households
in cluster 4 includes basic grains and offfarm
employment. These households have
the smallest landholdings, with less than 2 ha
of farmland of which less than 20 percent is
owned, on average. Thus, they need to rent
land, but overall land access is limited. By
working off-farm they are able to earn more
than double (US$0.41 per person per day;
see Table 4.8) the income of cluster 3 households,
in spite of an above-average dependency
ratio and below-average education
(Table 4.9). It seems that limited access to
land “pushes” these households to be more
entrepreneurial and seek out alternative
employment opportunities, in or out of agriculture.
On the other hand, differences between
the cost of buying food and the price
received by farmers for food crops sold may
mean that this group may be worse off than
cluster 3 in terms of food security, despite
higher calculated income per capita.
Households in cluster 5 on average have
over 10 ha of land, of which nearly two
thirds is kept either fallow or under forest.
Their livelihood strategy is similar to households
in cluster 4 but with considerably more
land, so they hire (rather than sell) labor and
devote a larger share of their time to livestock
activities (which are less labor intensive
than crop activities). However, their
average daily per capita income of US$0.29
is about 30 percent less than that of households
in cluster 4, but higher than households
in cluster 3, which produce just basic grains.
Apparently by working their own farms,
these households have lower incomes than
those seeking off-farm employment. On the
other hand, these households may be less
vulnerable to risks than those in cluster 4, as
they have greater wealth and more diversified
income sources. Education is slightly
above average for this cluster, whereas both
physical and natural assets, other than land,
are about average (Table 4.9).
Households in cluster 6 represent a
small group of permanent crop producers
with small landholdings (2.4 ha on average)
who devote most of their land and labor
to intensive tree crop production such as
fruits, oil palm, and so forth. These households
have the highest average incomes in
the sample (US$0.66 per capita per day).
Table 4.9 shows that they have smaller than
average household sizes and are located in
favorable agroecological areas with high
population densities, high rainfall, and good
access to paved roads and public transportation,
all of which are important for diversification
into higher-value permanent crop
production.
Finally, most households in cluster 7 are
vegetable producers who allocate most of
their labor to working on their own farms.
Despite being relatively far from a paved
road in areas with relatively low population
densities, these households are close to
a nonpaved road (Table 4.9), which gives
them a sufficient degree of market access
to specialize in vegetable production. Somewhat
surprising is the fact that their average
daily income during the survey year
(US$0.38 per capita) was only slightly
above average despite an average farm size
of about 4.5 ha, good market access, and
the relatively high educational level of the
household heads. A possible explanation
for the low incomes of this group is their
dependence on middlemen for the marketing
of their vegetables.