Abstract:
Household’s socio-economic characteristics have the potential of determining
livelihood strategies of community living adjacent to large scale agricultural investment areas.
However, livelihood diversification strategies in areas with large-scale agricultural investment
are determined by complex and yet empirically untested factors in Kilombero Valley. Thus, the
aim of this study is to examine the determinants of livelihood diversification strategies in the
study area. The study based adopted a cross-sectional research design and the exploratory
sequential research strategy whereby data were collected from 376 respondents. Quantitative
data collected through a structured questionnaire were entered into SPSS and Multinomial logit
model was used to examine determinants of household livelihood diversification strategies.
Qualitative data were subjected to content analysis. Generally, findings show that household
size, land size and access to credit were positively and significantly (p ≤ 0.05) associated with
households’ livelihood diversification for households adjacent to Kilombero Sugar Company
Limited (KSCL). On the other hand, land size, total income and group membership were
significantly (p ≤ 0.05) associated with households’ livelihood diversification for households
adjacent to Kilombero Plantation Limited (KPL). It is concluded that diversification of
livelihood strategies in communities adjacent to large-scale agricultural investments are context
specific and depends on investors adjacent to the community in question. It is recommended that
local government authorities and other development actors in Kilombero Valley should
recognize and support non-farm livelihood diversification and address access to credit
constraints by provision of credit with lowest interest rate to households who will be interested in
non-farm income generating activities.
