Abstract:
Agro pastoral and pastoral areas are affected by drought because naturally these areas were
exposed to erratic and uncertain rainfall patterns. And sustaining life with the system of
agro-pastoralism or pastoralism is getting difficult and income diversification becomes an
option to sustain life in these areas. Therefore, this paper examines the determinants of level
of income diversification and its share of total household income among agro-pastoral
households using cross-sectional survey design collected from Hamer woreda, Southern,
Ethiopia. The data were collected through structured interview. The study employed
multistage and purposive sampling techniques in the selection of 156 agro pastorals.
Descriptive statistics was used to describe the correlation of income diversification and
socio-economic, institutional and demographic factors whereas Censored Tobit model was
used to identify determinants of income diversification. The descriptive statistic result
revealed that farm income sources were the most important income source for rural farm
households in the study area contributing 86.02% of total household income with the
remaining 13.974% originating from non-farm and off-farm income sources. The mean
income diversification index is 0.31 which is medium in the study area. The most important
motive for income diversification is to avoid livestock selling, availability of external support,
and the existence of recurrent drought. The levels of income diversification were affected by
positively by sex of respondent, draught power/oxen number, farm size, extension contact,
and membership in opportunities and negatively affected by market distance. Generally, the
result shows the contribution of farm income sources to the total income of households is high
and income diversification is not well practiced in the area. Therefore, government and
stakeholder should continue its efforts in forming non-farm and off-farm business
cooperatives to generate income-earning opportunities in the rural areas and support the
agro-pastoralists to enhance non-farm and off-farm business activities productivity through
supportive policies including input provision, creating a market for their product and
accessing road infrastructures.
