IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/pocoec/v24y2012i3p403-417.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Is non-farm income diversification a feasible option for small-scale farmers? An assessment using a composite fuzzy indicator

Author

Listed:
  • Jana Fritzsch

Abstract

European politicians encourage the income diversification of rural households through various measures. Although a knowledge of farm households’ potential for non-farm income diversification seems important for finely targeting such policy measures, thus far no attempt has been made to summarise the various determinants of income diversification in a single figure. This contribution aims to close this gap. A composite fuzzy indicator that measures farm households’ potential for non-farm income diversification is developed and applied to 626 small-scale farm households in Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Slovenia. The indicator summarises the incentives and capacities for non-farm income diversification on the individual household member level and on the household and regional levels in a single measure using fuzzy logic methodology. The composite fuzzy indicator performs well and the results for the single small-scale farm households can easily be retraced. The indicator not only singles out the households that have the potential for non-farm income diversification but also shows the reasons for this. The indicator shows that most of the 626 households studied have a high potential for non-farm income diversification and that all are pushed toward diversification by the small size of their farms. The composite fuzzy indicator also identifies farm households that are trapped in a desperate situation due to unfavourable chances of finding a job in the labour market and long distances to the nearest large urban centre. Decision makers could utilise the composite fuzzy indicator to finely target diversification measures to the multifaceted conditions of farm households.

Suggested Citation

  • Jana Fritzsch, 2012. "Is non-farm income diversification a feasible option for small-scale farmers? An assessment using a composite fuzzy indicator," Post-Communist Economies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 24(3), pages 403-417, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:pocoec:v:24:y:2012:i:3:p:403-417
    DOI: 10.1080/14631377.2012.705473
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/14631377.2012.705473
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/14631377.2012.705473?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Junior Davis, 2005. "The rural non-farm economy, Livelihoods and their," Development and Comp Systems 0510016, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Undp, 2010. "HDR 2010 - The Real Wealth of Nations: Pathways to Human Development," Human Development Report (1990 to present), Human Development Report Office (HDRO), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), number hdr2010, September.
    3. Ravallion, Martin, 2012. "Troubling tradeoffs in the Human Development Index," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 99(2), pages 201-209.
    4. Haggblade, Steven & Hazell, Peter B. R. & Reardon, Thomas Anthony (ed.), 2007. "Transforming the rural nonfarm economy: Opportunities and threats in the developing world," IFPRI books, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), number 978-0-8018-8664-5.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Orlando Cimino & Marco Vassallo & Roberto Henke & Francesco Vanni, 2021. "Income Diversification Strategies of Italian Peri-Urban Farms: A Structural Equation Modeling Approach," Land, MDPI, vol. 10(8), pages 1-23, July.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Fritzsch, Jana, 2011. "A Composite Fuzzy Indicator for Assessing Farm Household Potential for Non-farm Income Diversification," 2011 International Congress, August 30-September 2, 2011, Zurich, Switzerland 114349, European Association of Agricultural Economists.
    2. Almeida, Alexandre N. & Bravo-Ureta, Boris E., 2019. "Agricultural productivity, shadow wages and off-farm labor decisions in Nicaragua," Economic Systems, Elsevier, vol. 43(1), pages 99-110.
    3. Wineman, Ayala & Jayne, Thomas S., 2016. "Intra-Rural Migration in Tanzania and Pathways of Welfare Change," 2016 Annual Meeting, July 31-August 2, Boston, Massachusetts 235957, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    4. Jeni Klugman & Francisco Rodríguez & Hyung-Jin Choi, 2011. "The HDI 2010: new controversies, old critiques," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 9(2), pages 249-288, June.
    5. Rémi Yin & Anthony Lepinteur & Andrew E Clark & Conchita d'Ambrosio, 2021. "Life Satisfaction and the Human Development Index Across the World," Working Papers halshs-03174513, HAL.
    6. repec:zbw:iamodp:109518 is not listed on IDEAS
    7. Van Puyenbroeck, Tom & Rogge, Nicky, 2017. "Geometric mean quantity index numbers with Benefit-of-the-Doubt weights," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 256(3), pages 1004-1014.
    8. Christophe Muller & Asha Kannan & Roland Alcindor, 2016. "Multidimensional Poverty in Seychelles," Working Papers halshs-01264444, HAL.
    9. Possenti, Silvia., 2012. "Rural development strategies as a path to decent work and reducing urban informal employment : the case of South Africa," ILO Working Papers 994790883402676, International Labour Organization.
    10. Hussein, K. & Suttie, D., 2016. "IFAD RESEARCH SERIES 5 - Rural-urban linkages and food systems in sub-Saharan Africa: the rural dimension," IFAD Research Series 280043, International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD).
    11. Alkire, Sabina & Roche, José Manuel & Vaz, Ana, 2017. "Changes Over Time in Multidimensional Poverty: Methodology and Results for 34 Countries," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 94(C), pages 232-249.
    12. Alkire, Sabina & Santos, Maria Emma, 2014. "Measuring Acute Poverty in the Developing World: Robustness and Scope of the Multidimensional Poverty Index," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 251-274.
    13. Leandro Prados de la Escosura, 2021. "Augmented human development in the age of globalization," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 74(4), pages 946-975, November.
    14. Luc Christiaensen & Joachim Weerdt & Yasuyuki Todo, 2013. "Urbanization and poverty reduction: the role of rural diversification and secondary towns," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 44(4-5), pages 435-447, July.
    15. Headey, Derek & Taffesse, Alemayehu Seyoum & You, Liangzhi, 2012. "Enhancing resilience in the Horn of Africa : An exploration into alternative investment options," IFPRI discussion papers 1176, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    16. Usman Qamar Sheikh & Muhammad Zafar Iqbal & Hafiz Khalil Ahmad, 2016. "The Impact of Foreign Aid, Energy Production and Human Capital on Income Inequality: A Case Study of Pakistan," Bulletin of Business and Economics (BBE), Research Foundation for Humanity (RFH), vol. 5(1), pages 1-9, March.
    17. Desiere, Sam & Vellema, Wytse & D’Haese, Marijke, 2014. "A validity assessment of the Progress out of Poverty Index (PPI) for Rwanda," 2014 International Congress, August 26-29, 2014, Ljubljana, Slovenia 182727, European Association of Agricultural Economists.
    18. González, Cynthia & Arce, Lucas & Masi, Fernando & Servín, Belén & Setrini, Gustavo, 2011. "Trade and poverty in Paraguay: the case of an agribusiness value chain," Documentos de Proyectos 3893, Naciones Unidas Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe (CEPAL).
    19. Martin Ravallion, 2011. "The human development index: a response to Klugman, Rodriguez and Choi," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 9(3), pages 475-478, September.
    20. Rafi Amir-ud-Din & Faisal Abbas & Sajid Amin Javed, 2018. "Poverty as Functioning Deprivation: Global Estimates," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 140(3), pages 1077-1108, December.
    21. Debashis Chakraborty & Sacchidananda Mukherjee, 2013. "Fiscal Subsidies and Environmental Sustainability: What does the Cross-country Empirical Estimates Suggest?," Foreign Trade Review, , vol. 48(3), pages 383-397, August.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:pocoec:v:24:y:2012:i:3:p:403-417. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/CPCE20 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.