Patterns of Relationships Between Farm and Nonfarm Sources of Income in the Rural Areas of the Northern Province

The objective of this paper is to identify patterns of relationships among farm and nonfarm income activities. Factor analysis (FA) (model) is applied on eleven income generating activities in the rural areas of the Northern Province. The principal component extraction method was used to extract five factors which reflected three patterns of farm-nonfarm relationships. The first pattern showed a complete inclination to farming activities. The two factors in this pattern involved traditional farming activities (maize and livestock sales) and diversified arable activities (sales of vegetables and other field crops). The second pattern reflected linkages to achieve the income objective (salaries and fruit sales) as well as food security (income from pensions and exchange for finished product). The last pattern pertained to nonfarm options; either business and services or wages. Programmes for rural development should aim to enhance the contribution of both agricultural and non­agricultural sectors to poverty alleviation by strengthening linkages between the sectors .