Poverty and Human Development Report 2009 - UNDP in Tanzania

pOVertY aND hUMaN DeVeLOpMeNt repOrt 2009
Within agriculture there is little variation in poverty by type of crop grown. for instance, amongst
those whose main source of cash income is the sale of food crops, 40% are poor, whereas 39%
of those dependent on the sale of cash crops are poor. those dependent on the sale of livestock
and livestock products have a lower rate of poverty (around 30%).
Table 45: Households in Poverty by Main Activity of Head of Household,
2000/01 and 2007
Activity of Head of Household
166
Headcount
ratio
2000/01 2007
% of the
poor
Headcount
ratio
% of the
farming / livestock / fishing / forest 39.9 80.8 38.7 74.2
Government employee 15.3 1.8 10.8 1.6
parastatal employee / other 8.1 0.3 10.9 0.7
employee – other 20.2 3.0 20.6 3.3
self employed / family helper 28.5 7.9 21.4 10.6
student - - 17.9 0.0
not active / home maker 43.1 6.2 46.2 9.6
Total 35.7 100.0 33.4 100.0
sources: hBs 2007; hoogeveen et al., 2009
Closer inspection of the distribution of income sheds light on the reason for such high poverty
among people whose main source of income is agriculture. table 46 presents the distribution of
income across wealth quintiles, and illustrates that total agricultural income is remarkably equally
distributed across the five wealth quintiles. in 2007, the poorest households earned 15.9% of
all agricultural income, whereas the least poor earned 20.3%. the difference in total income
comes from the fact that better-off households earn a substantial fraction of their income outside
agriculture, either as wages/salaries or through non-agricultural self-employment. the least poor
20% of households earn 48% of all wage income and 46% of all income from self-employment.
the poorest 20% of households on the other hand earn only 5% of all wage income and 4% of
all income from self-employment.
poor