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livelihood strategies into two overarching considerations; survival or choice. Wherenecessity refers to involuntary reasons for diversifying when sudden shocks occur,such as sudden death of family members, choice, by contrast, refer to voluntary andproactive reasons for diversifying. These determinants of livelihood diversificationare here further divided into five different factors; seasonality, risk, coping behaviour,labour markets, credit markets, and asset strategies.7.3.1 Seasonality“All households confront seasonality as an inherent feature of their livelihoods” (Ellis2000, p.58). Out of such contexts, different livelihood strategies are developed as seenearlier in this chapter.In the study area, all three villages face different kinds of shocks and risks, dependingon the seasonality. In 2008, there was flood in Kilosa that had severe effects on thearea. In Lunenzi crops in the valleys were washed away, destroying most of thelowland crops. In the lower lying Masugu and Nyali, livelihood had an even moresevere effect. In Nyali, the bridge on the main road was also destroyed, making itmore difficult to access the external markets. Due to the extent of this occurrence thegovernment had to give out food and basic supplies.In addition we were told that there are now more droughts than before, as well asunreliable rains and seasons. In Masugu they could now harvest only between 3-5bags of maize of 0,4 ha compared to 15 bags before. 69 % of the respondents saidthey had problems that limited their agricultural production. The most importantcauses are listed in Figure 19.205