TY - JOUR

T1 - The role of Jatropha curcas cultivation in livelihood strategies of small-scale households in rural Tanzania

AU - Faße, Anja

AU - Grote, Ulrike

N1 - Funding Information: The paper has been written in the context of the project “Strategies to use Biofuel Value Chain Potential in Sub-Saharan Africa to respond to Global Change—Enhancing low-productivity Farming in Tanzania and linking to SMEs” ( http://www.better-is.com ). The project was funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) under the umbrella of the GIZ (former GTZ) project “Advisory Service on Agricultural Research for Development” (BEAF).

PY - 2015/10

Y1 - 2015/10

N2 - Jatropha curcas is cultivated especially by small-scale farm households as a bioenergy plant, but also as a supporting plant for spice production such as vanilla and black pepper. With the increasing worldwide demand for both biofuel and spices, Jatropha cultivation is expected to expand in the future. To explore its role in rural households’ livelihood strategies, a factor, cluster and a multinomial logit regression analysis were conducted using household data from rural Tanzania. Three different livelihood strategies were identified: (1) “subsistence farm households combined with unskilled wage employment”, (2) “farm households highly specialized in cash crop production”, and (3) “farm households specialized in cash crop production combined with skilled off-farm employment”. While households from Cluster 3 are better-off, those from Cluster 1 are the poorest. The income from cultivation of Jatropha/spices is significantly higher for the third cluster. However, for poorer households of Cluster 1, the share of income from Jatropha/spices has been quite significant with up to 30 %. The result of the multinomial logit regression analysis identifies human and financial capital, transaction costs and institutional factors explaining differences in livelihood portfolios. The results help shaping and targeting interventions to improve livelihood strategies of the rural poor in Tanzania.

AB - Jatropha curcas is cultivated especially by small-scale farm households as a bioenergy plant, but also as a supporting plant for spice production such as vanilla and black pepper. With the increasing worldwide demand for both biofuel and spices, Jatropha cultivation is expected to expand in the future. To explore its role in rural households’ livelihood strategies, a factor, cluster and a multinomial logit regression analysis were conducted using household data from rural Tanzania. Three different livelihood strategies were identified: (1) “subsistence farm households combined with unskilled wage employment”, (2) “farm households highly specialized in cash crop production”, and (3) “farm households specialized in cash crop production combined with skilled off-farm employment”. While households from Cluster 3 are better-off, those from Cluster 1 are the poorest. The income from cultivation of Jatropha/spices is significantly higher for the third cluster. However, for poorer households of Cluster 1, the share of income from Jatropha/spices has been quite significant with up to 30 %. The result of the multinomial logit regression analysis identifies human and financial capital, transaction costs and institutional factors explaining differences in livelihood portfolios. The results help shaping and targeting interventions to improve livelihood strategies of the rural poor in Tanzania.

KW - Agroforestry

KW - Bioenergy

KW - Cluster analysis

KW - Multinomial logit

KW - Sustainability

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84941995133&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1007/s10113-013-0494-7

DO - 10.1007/s10113-013-0494-7

M3 - Article

AN - SCOPUS:84941995133

VL - 15

SP - 1203

EP - 1214

JO - Regional environmental change

JF - Regional environmental change

SN - 1436-3798

IS - 7

ER -