Constraints to agriculture Agriculture and livestock

Afghanistan NRVA 2005 56 Security has been an issue for more almost three decades. There is a clear pattern of insecurity perceived by the households in the southern and central parts of the country. Idiosyncratic shocks are distributed in two more or less continuous bands oriented in a southwest to northeast direction. In the west, Nimroz, Farah, Hirat in the north, Faryab and Jawzjan present higher incidences of idiosyncratic shocks. Similarly, in the southwest, Kandahar and other parts of the country provinces like Ghazni, Daykundi, Logar, Kabul, Nangarhar, Bamyan, Baghlan and Kunduz present high incidences of these shocks. Figure 16: Households experiencing idiosyncratic shocks last 12 months This report does not characterize the vulnerability of different domains or populations by province to different shocks or even suggest that there is a preconceived idea of how to cope with risk in a systematic manner. Rather, it shows that diversification of income or livelihoods can be used to understand how households have reacted to mitigate risk and vulnerability. Income or livelihood diversification is an ancient response to coping with uncertainty. Data from NRVA 2005 for the four working categories in this report Kuchi, rural, urban and national can be used to assess frequencies of households that declared activities within each of the eight groups of sources of income mentioned in section 3.7. For example, if a household has livestock production for home consumption and sells livestock products, it is recorded as a household with only one source of income livestock, despite having two activities within that group. If the same household grows, processes and sells opium, it will count opium as a second source of income. If this very same household has one or more members engaged in non-farm labour clerk, accountant or teacher, the household accrues one more point towards this group of income. The spread in sources of income is a way to quantify livelihood diversification. It does not require monetary figures, but registers the presence or absence of means to sustain the household economy. Afghanistan NRVA 2005 57 The table below shows that rural households have the most diversified sources of income; 48 have only one source of income undefined group out of the 8 above while 40 have two sources of income, 12 have three sources of income, and 1 have four sources of income and less than half percent have five sources of income. 25 In contrast, urban dwellers have much less diversified sources of income; 84 have only one source of income trade and services, non-farm or manufacture would be the most likely while15 have two sources of income, 2 have three sources of income and only 0 have four or more sources of income. The exposure to environmental variability in the rural or Kuchi households is dramatically higher than that of the rural dwellers; therefore, income diversification is higher than in urban areas. In contrast, Kuchi households are less diversified than rural households. Table 51: Income diversification Increasing number of groups of income Total Categories 1 2 3 4 5 No. weighted observations Kuchi 62 32 6 1 185,148 100 Rural 48 40 12 1 2,980,859 100 Urban 84 15 2 607,062 100 National 55 35 10 1 3,773,069 100 The groups are any of those in section 3.7 livestock, agriculture, opium, trade and services, manufacture, remittance, other and non-farm. The national percentage of households with only one income group was 55; this percentage was broken down as follows using un-weighted observations: Table 52: Households within the one income group Income No. un-weighted observations Livestock 1,487 9 Agriculture 4,496 27 Opium 110 1 Trade and services 4,696 29 Manufacture 321 2 Remittances 374 2 Other 648 4 Non-farm 4,357 26 Total 16,489 100 The table below presents the combinations of groups for households with two groups of income. Nationally, there were 10,489 households with two groups of income. The most frequent combination of income sources was agriculture with a non-farm activities 22, b livestock 22, or c trade and services 11. 26 A similar pattern was also evident in the rural communities. In comparison, but not surprisingly, the Kuchi were more likely to combine livestock with a non-farm activities 39, b trade and services 10 and c agriculture 17. Households in the urban areas were more likely to combine trade and services with a non-farm activities 26, b manufacturing 15 or c agriculture 13. 25 Because of rounding, anything less than 0.5 is recorded as zero in the tables throughout this report. Real zeros are indicated with empty cells or cells with one dot. 26 The entries in the table depict the interactions of income groups that could eventually be traced to monetary values. The interaction is based on frequencies of households combining two groups of income or employment, rather than on a correlation based on market values derived from these activities.