ABSTRACT Rural development has been erroneously equated to agricultural development. The former works to diversify income through non-farm activities to complement proceeds of the latter. However, the actual role of non-farm income in poverty alleviation is not yet known among rural households. There is therefore the need to critically explore the roles of non-farm income diversification in rural poverty alleviation. The patterns and contributions of nonfarm income diversification to poverty...
Abstract This thesis consists of three papers on child labour and schooling in Ghana. The first paper examines the correlates of child labour and schooling, as well as the trade-off between work and schooling of children aged 5-17 years with the 2013 Ghana Living Standard Survey data. A bivariate probit model is used since the decisions to participate in schooling and in the labour market are interdependent. The results show that there is a gender gap both in child work and schooling. In par...
Dairy farming is an important industry in Kenya with an estimated value of Ksh 160 billion and supporting over 1 million households. Commercial smallholder dairy farmers number over onemillion and produce about 80% of marketed milk in the country. However, the smallholder dairy farmers have had to contend with ups and down in the industry since its liberalization and collapse and revival of the then Kenya Cooperative Creameries (KCC) in 1990s. However, the factors that influence smallho...
ABSTRACT The phenomenon of increasing rice importation defying several policy interventions has been of great concern in Nigeria. This rising importation is however driven by increasing demand, shortage in domestic supply and consumers’ preference for imported rice. Yet, comprehensive national studies on determinants of demand, supply response and preference switch for rice are scarce. Thus, the determinants of demand, supply response and preference switch for rice were investigated. Seco...
ABSTRACT The study on harmonizing the factors constraining accessibility of credit to women entrepreneurs was conducted in two divisions namely: Mikese in Morogoro rural and Morogoro urban districts. The objective of the study was to establish different scenarios that harmonize factors limiting accessibility of credit to women. The study involved 103 respondents who were credit beneficiaries from three types of financial institutions; the Formal Financial Institution (FFI), Semi-formal Financ...
ABSTRACT The poultry industry in Kenya is a key contributor to the local economy as well as food security and income with over 90% of households owning a flock of chicken (Kingori et al., 2010). The main objective of this study was to investigate the challenges faced by rural and peri urban chicken farmers in Katulani District, Kitui County. The study focussed on understanding the challenges affecting chicken farming, factors affecting technology adoption, access to institutional support serv...
Abstract A study was carried out on substrate pasteurisation for P. ostreatus cultivation. The major aim of this work was to compare the effectiveness of wood ash, hydrated lime, bleach and boiling for pasteurisation of the substrate for cultivation of white oyster mushroom, Pleurotus ostreatus, on maize straw. To achieve this objective, weed occurrence, the number of days to completely colonise the straw (NDCC), the number of days to initiate primordial sprouting (NDIPS), the number of prim...
ABSTRACT “Local Government is the heart and soul of any Government for the people and by the people. It is through local authorities that a country’s development is realized. Every investor has to work with local authorities for taxation, rates and other services offered in both rural and urban areas” (Harare Residents’ Trust 2017). This study seeks to recommend how Local Governments can improve their role in promoting Local Development by using the Developmental model of Local Govern...
ABSTRACT The study examined determinants of farmer participation in agriculture micro insurance in Zimbabwe specific reference to peri urban area in Harare. The study was promoted by low uptake of agriculture insurance products being experienced by companies offering agriculture micro insurance. There was need in the market to develop a product that is affordable due to the informalised nature of the Zimbabwean sector. There is need to reach to the poor households and mitigate their level of ...
ABSTRACT The main aim of this dissertation is to study on how low school fees payment in schools affects schools administration. Despite the researches done by many researchers, the issue of low school fees payments were left untouched. The problem statement relies on understanding the effects on impacts of low school fees payments in running schools. In order to comply with the problems a research was undertake. The overall image that emerges from the literature depicts that high failure rat...
ABSTRACT This study is/was an assessment of community-based natural resource management in rural areas and how natural resources enhance community livelihoods in reducing poverty against the backdrop of resource depletion. The study adopted a trans-disciplinary approach to research aimed at gathering the necessary information on natural resource management. Data collection techniques such as review of relevant literature, focus group discussions, in-depth interviews, formal institutional int...
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Ho District has the second largest land area and the largest population among the twelve Districts of the Volta Region. Ho doubles as the capital of both the district and the region. Over the past five years the incidence of measles has been increasing and has come to be among the top ten diseases in the district. This research was organized to study the characteristics of measles cases and their families in order to find out who were affected, where within the district they...
ABSTRACT Diversification is a necessity in rural areas, where farming alone rarely provides sufficient means of survival. Conceptualisation of livelihood diversification as plurality of activities from past studies is too narrow. Rather, livelihood diversification should be conceived in terms of the interplay of ability, assets and activities. Therefore, livelihood diversification among rural households in southwestern Nigeria was investigated. Multistage random sampling technique was used to...
ABSTRACT Small-holder farmers in the urban and peri-urban areas have become very vulnerable to land use change patterns due to rapid increase in population and urbanization. Farmlands are gradually being converted to residential facilities, posing significant threat to the livelihood of farmers who depend on such lands. Land use change at Abokobi dates back to the 2004, but the phenomena became more pronounced in 2008 when the Ga East District attained municipal status. With support from the ...
ABSTRACT The sharing of domestic expenses between conjugal units in Ghanaian households has changed overtime. The way and manner in which conjugal units in rural Ghana shared their domestic expenses tend to be different from how conjugal units in urban Ghana share their domestic expenses. This is as a result of the change in factors such as the shift from the farming system in agrarian economies of the rural areas to monetized urban economies where there is the market system, access to educat...