文章基本信息

标题：Constraints to diversification of poor fishery-dependent households in Cameroon
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作者：Witt, Rudolf ; Waibel, Hermann
期刊名称：Journal of Food Distribution Research
印刷版ISSN：0047-245X
出版年度：2011
出版社：Food Distribution Research Society
摘要：Rural households in sub-Saharan Africa face many risks and are therefore often vulnerable to poverty. Income diversification has been proposed as a potentially effective strategy to mitigate their risks. This paper explores how portfolio decisions of fishery-dependent households in Cameroon affect income and risk in different production systems. Data on income variation across time were elicited using the visual impact method. Portfolio theory and stochastic dominance rules were used to derive and compare income distributions. The results show a considerable variation in incomes despite diversification into crops or fishing. We conclude that any combination of cropping (sorghum, millet, rice) and fishing is not effective in reducing risk as long as the dependency on climate remains strong (resulting in high covariance of production output). We show that development intervention strategies that aim specifically at changing the co-variation structure of income flows are the most successful in reducing risk and potentially increasing income.
关键词：diversification;poverty and vulnerability;portfolio theory;sub-Saharan Africa