SECTION I: INTRODUCTIONA large and

SECTION I: INTRODUCTION
A large and disparate literature, arising from a variety of disciplines, has confirmed that rural people in Africa and Asia do not normally specialise in livestock, crop or fish production to the total exclusion of other income generating activities. Rather, a majority of rural producers have historically diversified their productive activities to encompass a range of other productive areas. Motivations for such diversification are multifarious, linked with wide range of possible activities,
and associated with both positive and negative outcomes. This recognition has led many researchers to represent rural livelihoods as constructed from a portfolio of resources, or activities (Adams and Mortimore 1997; Dercon and Krishnan 1996; Ellis 1996; Unni 1996). The literature generally concurs that while such diversification of livelihoods is common, in
takes on a different nature in different contexts. It is:
• sometimes a means to enable accumulation for consumption and investment;
• sometimes employed to help spread risk, or to cope with temporary crises;
• sometimes an adaptive response to longer-term declines in income or entitlements, due to serious economic or environmental changes beyond local control;
• inevitably pursued via a range of activities that are by nature specific to the local context (in relation to resources available, culture, natural resources, climate etc.);
• often differentiated (types and degrees of diversification differ according to location, gender, age,
class, and culture);
• usually structured by a wide range of motivations, restrictions and opportunities;
• often closely bound to and concurrent with the development and implementation of other livelihood strategies, especially agricultural intensification and migration;
• tempered in form and extent by wealth disparities and differential access to entitlements