Determinants of livelihood diversification strategies : The case of smallholder rural farm households in Debre Elias Woreda , East Gojjam Zone , Ethiopia

Smallholder rural farm households face an increasing need of looking for alternative income sources to supplement their small scale agricultural activities. However, livelihood diversification is determined by complex and yet empirically untested factors in Debre Elias Woreda. Thus, the aim of this study is to assess the determinants of livelihood diversification strategies in the study area. The data were collected through both primary and secondary data collection methods. The data were obtained from 160 sample household heads that were selected through a combination of two-stage, purposive and simple random sampling techniques. The descriptive statistics were used to identify the livelihood strategies and the livelihood assets. The finding of the survey result indicates that much of the rural households (61%) in the study area practice diversified livelihood strategies that combined on-farm activities with non/off-farm activities. Multinomial logit model applied to investigate the determinant factors influencing the households’ choice of livelihood strategies. In this regard, the econometric analysis demonstrated that out of the total sixteen variables included in the model only seven variables including land size, livestock holding size, sex of household head, mass media, market distance, total annual household income, and urban linkage are found to be the significant determinants up to 10% probability levels. The results of this study suggest that both agricultural intensification and non/offfarm diversification should be strengthened to attain smallholder households’ livelihood security.


INTRODUCTION
Agriculture is an important sector for majority of the rural populations' livelihood in developing countries.It has been the predominant activity for most rural households in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) which offers a strong option for spurring growth, overcoming poverty, and enhancing food security (World Bank, 2008).In Ethiopia agriculture serves as the primary means of rural households' livelihood, which Contributes 45% GDP, more than 80% of employment opportunities and over 90% of the foreign exchange earnings of the country (MoA, 2010).
However, farming as a primary source of income has become failed to guarantee sufficient livelihood for most farming households in sub-Sahara African countries (Babatunde, 2013).This is because the agricultural sector in the sub-Saharan African countries is highly characterized by decreasing farm sizes, low levels of output per farm, and a high degree of subsistence farming (Jirstrom et al., 2011).The agricultural activities in rural Ethiopia is also dominated by smallholders, the majority cultivating less than 0.5 ha and producing mostly basic staples for the subsistence of their households.Furthermore, their agricultural activities are characterized by backward production technologies, small fragmented land size, irregular rainfalls, increasing soil erosion, land degradation, aridity in some regions and pervasive tropical diseases in the others (Arega et al., 2013).
Thus, the expectation that achieving the goal of reducing poverty only through increasing agricultural productivity and redressing the issues of access to key agricultural resources without non/off-farm livelihood diversification could not be successful in the sub-Sahara African countries (Emanuel, 2011).For these reasons there is a strong consensus that any development intervention to improve the livelihood and food security situation of the rural poor need to take agriculture along with the non/off-farm livelihood diversification, without undue preference being given to farming as the unique solution to rural poverty.
Similarly, a report from World Bank (2005) indicated that in Ethiopia the poor to survive tend to diversify in the form of daily wage laborer, and to mitigate production risk of rain fed agriculture, choose low risk but low return crops which contribute to poverty trap.Furthermore, Reta and Ali (2012) indicated that in rural Ethiopia if there had not been other sources of income apart from agricultural production, the land scarcity by the farmers coupled with agricultural risks could not generate enough income to feed household members and they cannot fulfill household needs.This suggests that the necessity of non/off-farm diversification in rural Ethiopia.From the point of view of reducing poverty and food insecurity in rural Ethiopia, it is extremely important to reduce vulnerability of the poor through diversification of the sources of their livelihoods.Thus, it needs the analysis of the livelihood diversification opportunities available in rural areas, the productivity and returns offered by such activities, especially those in which the poor are engaged, and an identification of the factors that may affect the ability of the poor to raise productivity and returns in their activities (Deverux, 2000).Furthermore, it is crucial to recognize that rural people have their own strategies to secure their livelihoods which vary from household to household depending on numerous factors such as their socio-economic status, education and local knowledge, ethnicity, and stage in the household life cycle (Wagayehu, 2004).
The rural farm households in East Gojjam zone in general and in the study area (Debre Elias district) in particular are producing cereal crops which have low economic returns and are highly dependent on the rainfed agricultural production systems.Furthermore, due to the insufficient land resource to absorb the household's full labor force and the rain fall pattern variability, the smallholder farming households in the study area are becoming unable to meet the annual family food requirements.As a result, they are obliged to engage in low return daily labor works, firewood selling, petty trading, and handy craft activities (like weaving, blacksmith, and pottery works) to supplement their fragmented land based livelihoods and to cope up with the agricultural risks.
In the study area, even though, the smallholder rural farm households are involved in diverse livelihood activities, the households access to different income sources beyond agriculture vary across the ownerships of different livelihood assets.Moreover, the participation of smallholder farming rural households into non/off-farm activities is determined by complex and yet empirically untested factors in the study area.It is thus, so important to identify the determinant factors of non/off-farm livelihood diversification strategies in the study area to improve smallholder rural farm households' livelihood diversification strategies.Therefore, the objectives of this paper are 1) to examine the existing livelihood strategies pursued by the smallholder farming rural households; and 2) to identify the determinants of livelihood diversification strategies among smallholder farmers.

Descriptions of the study area
The study conducted in Debre Elias district which is found in East Gojjam Zone, Amhara National Regional state of Ethiopia.The district is located around 335 km northwest from the capital city of Ethiopia Addis Ababa.The mean annual temperature of the district ranges from 18-27°C and receives mean annual rainfall of 1150 mm Hg with an altitude which ranges from 800 to 2200 m above sea level (Achenef and Admas, 2012).The red soils are the dominant soil type and it is moderately fertile.The area is moderately dense population that ranges from 100 to120 people per km 2 (Debre Elias Woreda Agriculture and Rural Development office report, 2012).Based on the 2007 national census conducted by the Central Statistical Agency of Ethiopia (CSA), Debre Elias district had a total population of 82,150, of whom 41,109 were men and 41,041 women; and 7,928 or 9.65% were urban inhabitants.The majority of the inhabitants practiced Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahido Christianity, with 98.94% reported that as their religion, while 1.01% of the populations were Muslim.Small scale mixed agriculture is the dominant source of livelihood to the local people.Maize, Barely, Wheat, Teff and Potatoes are the principal crops, and from the livestock Cattle, Sheep and Goats are the dominant animals (Figure 1).

Data types and methods of data collection
The dataset for this study obtained from both primary and secondary data sources which are qualitative and quantitative in their nature.The primary data were collected from structured sample household head interviews.Structured sample household head interviews employed to generate household level data on the household assets, households' livelihood activities, strategies, and the determinants of livelihood diversification strategies.Key Informant Interviews (Klls), Focus Group Discussions (FGDs), and Observations were also employed to triangulate and support the primary data which obtained from the sample household head interviews.Secondary methods of data collection were reviewing published and unpublished research journals, books and theses; and assessing different records and reports of agriculture and rural development office on input and output prices, and crop and animal diseases.

Sample size and sampling techniques
The two stage sampling design was used to select the sample households.In the first stage, three kebeles (namely yemezegn, gibtsawit and abeshebi), where the large number of landless and smallholder farm households are prevalent, were purposively selected by the help of Debre Elias Woreda land use and administration office employees.In the second stage, according to the number of total households in each kebele, proportionate to size technique was applied to determine sample households size from each kebele.Ultimately, a total of 160 sample household heads were selected by using systematic simple random sampling technique (Table 1).

Methods of data analysis
To analyze the data, both descriptive and inferential statistics were used.The types and levels of assets a household own, types of shocks households faced, and constraints of livelihood diversification strategy choice were analyzed through descriptive statistics like maximum, minimum, mean, percentage, and standard deviations.Inferential statistics like Chi-square test and F-tests were used.Chi-square test was used to see whether there are significant differences among the different livelihood diversification strategies in relation to dummy/categorical variables.On the other hand, one way analysis of variance was used to see whether there are significant differences among the livelihood diversification strategies in relation to continuous variables.To analyze the determinants of livelihood diversification multinomial logit model was used.The descriptive and inferential data analyses were conducted using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 20.The qualitative data obtained from focus group discussions and key informant interviews are stated in narrative form.

Econometric model specifications
In this study four mutually exclusive livelihood diversification strategies were identified.These include on-farm only, on-farm plus non-farm, on-farm plus off-farm, and on-farm plus off-farm plus nonfarm.According to many literatures multinomial logit model is a widely used technique in applications that analyze polytomous response categories in different areas of economic and social studies.Wassie et al. (2008) stated that multinomial logit model is an important model to examine the determinants of household The assumption is that in a given period at the disposal of its asset endowment, a rational household head choose among the four mutually exclusive livelihood strategies that could offer the maximum utility.Following Greene (2003), suppose for the i th respondent faced with j choices, the utility choice j can be specified as: If the respondent makes choice j in particular, then Uij is the maximum among the j utilities.So the statistical model is derived by the probability that choice j is made, which is: Where; Uij is the utility to the i th respondent from livelihood strategy j; and Uik is the utility to the i th respondent from livelihood strategy k.Thus, the i th household's decision can be modeled as maximizing the expected utility by choosing the j th livelihood strategy among J discrete livelihood strategies, that is: In general, for an outcome variable with J categories, let the j th livelihood strategy that the i th household chooses to maximize its utility could take the value 1 if the i th household choose j th livelihood strategy and 0 otherwise.The probability that a household with characteristics x chooses livelihood strategy j, Pij is modeled as: With the requirement that = 1 for any i Where; Pij = probability representing the i th respondent's chance of falling into category j; Xi = Predictors of response probabilities; and βj = Covariate effects specific to j th response category with the first category as the reference.A convenient normalization that removes indeterminacy in the model is to assume that β1 = 0 (Greene, 2003).So that exp(Xiβj) = 1, implying that the generalized Equation ( 4) is equivalent to: Where; y = A polytomous outcome variable with categories coded from 0.…… J. Note: The probability of Pi1 is derived from the constraint that the J probabilities sum to 1.That is, Pij= 1-.So similar to binary logit model it implies that we can compute J log-odds ratios which are specified as: x' (βj-βJ)= x' βj, if J=0 (6) The independent variables that expected to affect diversification of livelihood strategies of rural households in the study area are age of the household head, sex of the household head, dependency ratio, education level of the household head, land size of the household, livestock holding size of the household, market distance of the household, road distance of the household, access to irrigation, credit use, membership to cooperatives, extension contact, urban linkage, access to mass medias, total income and the amount of saving (Table 2).

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
The findings of this research are organized based on the three major emergent themes, namely: types of livelihood strategies, livelihood assets, and the determinants of the choices of livelihood diversification strategies.It also presents and discusses the descriptive statistics, inferential statistics and econometric model results under each theme.

Household livelihood strategies
Livelihood strategies are the combination of activities that people choose to undertake in order to achieve their livelihood goals (Ellis and Allison, 2004).Livelihood activities are actions taken by the household to obtain household income.There are different methods of identifying livelihood strategies; but most commonly, economists group households' livelihood strategies by shares of income earned from different sectors of the rural economy (Brown et al., 2006).The approach adopted here is a simple one, but it effectively delineates households into different categories.To determine these strategies, it has been done by categorizing households who have followed similar strategies among the choices of farm, off-farm and non-farm activities.Therefore, here, In the study area, smallholder farm households obtained their household income from three major categories of livelihood activities which include on-farm, non-farm, and off-farm activities.
On-farm activities are focused on both crop production and animal husbandry activities.Different crops are grown in the study kebeles.Some of the major crops grown in the study area include Teff, Maize, Wheat, Nouge, Bean and Barely.Cattle, sheep and goats, donkey, horse, and poultry are reared for both income and consumption purpose.Livestock by-products which are valuable in the study areas are skimmed milk, butter, yoghurt, whey, and cheese.Key informants stated that livestock serve as a draught power, transportation service, and provides meat, milk, yoghurt, and cheese.Based on the survey result, the majority (92.25%) of the households were engaged in rearing at least one of the livestock types.In contrast to this, 6.75% do not participated in any one of the livestock rearing activities Off-farm activities here refer to agricultural activities which take place outside the person's own farm.The activities include local daily wage labour at village level or the neighbouring areas in return for cash payment or the agricultural work at another person's farm in return for part of the harvest in kind.Natural resource based activities like firewood and charcoal selling are the other source of off-farm income for some households in the study sites.From the total sample households, only 36.5% of the households participated in off-farm activities while 63.1% households did not participated in any one of the off-farm activities.Again from the total off-farm participants' majority (55.9%) of the households engaged in agricultural wage labor activities.
Non-farm activities in this study refer to activities takes place outside the agricultural sector.It includes handicraft activities (weaving, spinning, carpentry, house mudding, poet making, remittance etc), petty trade (grain trade, fruits and vegetables trade), selling of local drinks, trading of small ruminants and cattle, and remittance transfers within and across nations.From the total sample households 46.3% of the households are engaged in non-farm activities while 53.7% of the households are not engaged in any one of non-farm activities.
Rural farm households in the study area have followed one, two or a combination of these livelihood activities to pursue their livelihood strategies.Accordingly, four livelihood strategies were identified which include the onfarm only strategy, on-farm plus non-farm, on-farm plus off-farm and a combination of on-farm off-farm and offfarm activities.
As shown in the pie chart (Figure 2), 39% of the households entirely depend on the on-farm only livelihood strategy, 17% households depends on on-farm plus off-farm, 21% of the respondents depends on onfarm plus non-farm, and the rest 23% of sample respondents depend on on-farm plus off-farm plus nonfarm livelihood diversification strategy (Figure 2).
As shown in Table 3, the household survey witnessed that almost all average net annual income (88.9%) of the households were obtained from agricultural crop production and animal husbandry sources; and only 11.1% of the household's average net annual income are obtained from a combination of non/off farm activities.This is in consistent with national estimate of the country, where more than 80% of the rural peoples' livelihood income gained from agriculture activities (CSA, 2010).According to the survey result the contribution of non/offfarm activities to the total household income was very low.In line with small percentage contribution of non/offfarm activities, key informants stated that non/off-farm activities in the study area are low paying and non ruminative activities.Moreover, they stated that rural farm households in the study area are engaged in non/off farm activities as part time activities.

Livelihood capitals/assets
Different researchers agreed that mainly there are five types of livelihood assets namely human, economic, social, natural, and physical capitals.Therefore, this study intended to assess the five types of capitals.

Natural capitals
In the agrarian economy, land is the basic livelihood asset for all farm activities and it is important for both crop and livestock production (Siraji, 2007).In the study area almost all household's livelihood income depends on agricultural production, so land is the main factor of production that can determine the livelihood of rural farm households.The overall average private land size of the sample respondents in the study kebeles is 1.4 ha.
The one way analysis of variance result has shown that there is a significant mean land size differences among the different livelihood strategies at less than 1% level of significance.The farm households who have large mean land size are depends on agricultural activities alone whereas farm households with smaller mean land size are engaged in non-farm and off-farm livelihood diversification strategies (Table 4).This is clearly indicates that the smallholder rural farm households are engaged into non/off-farm livelihood diversification strategies for push reasons.The smaller amount of land size could not support household food and other financial requirements and hence forces them to look for other alternative sources of income.Therefore, the above result suggests that improving the participation of smallholder farm households into profitable non/off-farm activities other than their farming activities is an effective way to reduce financial problems of smallholder farmers.
The key informants stated that the main means of accessing lands in the study area are acquisition from government land distribution, family gift, inheritance, land renting, crop land sharing and a combination of these.
Land renting and crop land sharing are the main means of accessing land for smallholder and landless households.The key informants stated that landless and smallholder households shared in land from farmers who have lands but no traction power, capital and labor to cultivate the lands.The share cropping agreements are held between the negotiating parties and local mediators depending on the crop type to be grown and land suitability for crops.In the study sites there is a locally accepted standard to rent in and out the land.The key informants reported that the current mean contract price of 1 timmad (one-fourth a hectare of land) of land for one year varies between 500-100 birr depending upon fertility and suitability to a particular crop types.In the study

Human capitals
The main indicators of human capital in this study are sex, age, extension contact, education level, and dependency ratio of the household heads.Regarding education level of the household head, the more educated household heads are engaged in non-farm and off-farm diversification strategies and chi-square test indicates that there is a significant association between education level of the household head and livelihood diversification strategies at less than 5% probability level (Table 5).This is because the better educated households are capable of calculating the costs and benefits of income generating activities and hence, enable them to engage in non/off-farm activities.Sex of the household head is also significant across livelihood diversification strategies at less than 5% probability level.As shown in

Social capitals
Membership to Iddir, religious meetings, self-help groups (like Debo and Wonfel), and cooperatives are found to be the most important social assets in the study area.
According to the key informants' interview membership to Iddir enables the members to help each other, solve internal conflicts, and thus, reducing powerlessness.However, the survey result indicates that membership to Iddir found to be statistically insignificant variable (Table 5).
The informal social ties like friendships, relationships and neighborhood activities (like coffee ceremony) are found as the other social capitals in the study area.Key informants stated that livestock shares, crop land sharing, credit services and other benefits are shared based on social ties, friendship, relatives and membership to local institutions.The landless and smallholder farmers who need additional unit of land for crop production makes agreement with those households who have land but lack inputs, traction power and labor are mediated through local institutions and local elders.
With regard to urban linkage, the respondents were enquired as to whether they have friends and relatives in the town, majority (52.5%) of the respondents confirmed that they have friends and/or relatives in the town and the rest 47.5% of the respondents have no relatives neither friends' in the town.Chi-square test result shows that urban linkage is significantly different among livelihood diversification strategies at 5% probability level.This is because friends and/or relatives in the urban area offered information on the non/off-farm employment opportunities to the rural peoples.

Financial capitals
In the study area the main indicators of financial capital are crop production income, livestock rearing income, off /non-farm income, credit, and saving.The average annual agricultural income, off farm income, and nonfarm income of a household were 14,887.84,368.22 and 1,064.84birr ETB respectively.Livestock holding in the study area is an important source of financial income.Key informants stated that a large number of livestock holding is the indicator of wealth and prestige in the study area.The mean livestock holding are significantly different across different livelihood diversification strategies at less than 1% probability level (Table 4).This is because a small number of livestock holding do not enable them to generate enough income to support family needs which cause them to participate in non/off-farm activities other than farm activities.
The other source of financial income is saving.As shown in Table 4, the amount of saving is significantly different across livelihood diversification strategies at 1% level of significance.This is because a large amount of saving enables the farm households to invest in non-farm activities.The key informants explained that in the study area, Ekub is the main scheme that rural households used to accumulate or save money by rotation/turn.This is essential to start petty trading or investing in new nonfarm activities.In this regard one key informant participant claimed the following idea.
"I was the member of Ekub institution with 13 other members and we saved 50 birr weekly.After I accumulated three thousand ETB in my turn I started trading in small ruminants at the occasions of religious holidays and in the annual festivals.My wife also was engaged in local beverages (like Tella and katikala) preparation and trading.By now we are able to support our family annual incomes through the participation of the non-farm activities other than our agricultural production."

Physical capitals
In this particular study physical capital includes access to mass media, road distance, market distance, and access to irrigation.The survey result shows that 48.8% households have had access to at least one of the mass medias like listening to radio and watching television.From the total households who have access to mass media a considerable percent of households (32.6%) are participants of non/off-farm livelihood diversification (Table 5).Furthermore, the chi-square test result shows that access to mass media is significantly different among livelihood diversification strategies at 1% level of significance.This reflects that access to mass media enhances rural farm households' information on non/offfarm diversification opportunities.
The mean road and market distance for only on-farm livelihood strategy participants are lower than the mean market and road distance for non/off-farm livelihood diversification participants (Table 4).This indicates that households who are residing nearer to road and market center are depending only on agriculture rather than non/off-farm livelihood diversification.On the other hand those households who reside far from the market center are involved more on off-farm diversification.According to key informants this is because an access to roads and market facilitates movement of farm inputs and outputs in a cost effective way which makes households profitable from the agricultural production in turn it attract farm households to depend only on agriculture.They also informed that those households who reside far from market center may engaged low paying off-farm activities to solve the liquidity problems.This result is contradicted with Gebrehiwot and Fekadu (2012) result which shows that easy access to market and roads reduces transaction costs, and enhance non-farm employments.

Vulnerability contexts in the study area
Vulnerability refers to both exposures to unfavorable developments like rainfall failure, or livestock loss that would cause considerable harm to livelihood; as well as the lack of means to cope with the loss without losing the household's livelihood base (Chambers, 2006).This definition was directly applied to this study.

Trends
The high dependency of people on natural resources for subsistence needs coupled with high rates of deforestation for commercial interests renders most of the forest communities' people vulnerable to natural and financial shocks (FAO, 2005).According to the key informants discussion in the study area also due to the non-availability of other alternatives all of the farm households use forests and woods for cooking and heating, for the construction of new houses and/or to repair the existing ones, and for charcoal production purpose.Therefore, the declining trend of forest in the study area is one cause of vulnerability.
Natural resource degradation is another type of vulnerability.Almost all of key informants agreed that soil fertility is becoming reduced.The cost of agricultural inputs is increasing from time to time.Informants stated that around 8 or 9 years ago the cost of 50 kg DAP was only 70 birr but now it has scored up to 700 birr per 50 kg DAP.

Shocks
The results of this study shows that crop pests and diseases like stock borer, smut, warms, locust, lack of grazing land, and livestock disease coupled with less veterinary service coverage are the most common problems raised by the participants.As shown in Appendix Table 5, 74.1% respondents reported that crop pests and diseases are the major challenges of crop production.Key informant participants also strongly complained that crop pests and disease, locust, earth warm, stock borer, and smut are the most common problems.
According to the survey result, 23.2% of the respondents reported that lack of grazing lands, animal diseases, lack of drinking water for animals, and lack of veterinary medicine are the commonest problems in the study area (Appendix Table 6).Key informants discussion ensured that Trypanosomosis, Anthrax (kureba), Bloating (wajima), Brucellosis (abortion), Mastites, Ticks (mezhiger), and animal foot and mouth disease are the highly prevalent livestock rearing challenges (Appendix Tables 3 and 4).

Seasonal ties
The spatial-temporal distributions of elements of climate determine cropping pattern, cropping calendar and type of livestock to be raised (Degefa, 2005).The high dependency of rural people on rain fed agriculture and limited irrigation practices worsen the vulnerability of the people to climate change (Dula, 2007).According to the woreda agriculture and rural development office report (2012) from the total 39,100 ha rain fed and irrigated land only 2,696 ha (6.7%) of the total lands were irrigated in the 2012/2013 production year.This indicates that almost all people were depending on rain fed agriculture with minimal irrigation.
Key informants and group discussants have shown that engagements in non/off farm activities are mostly seasonal and done on a part-time basis.The main cropping season is the summer (May to December) season which largely dominated by agricultural activities on own farm especially in times of good rains.Similarly, Haggablade et al. (2007) found that in most developing countries off-farm activities were highly seasonal, and fluctuates with availability of agricultural raw materials.

Econometric model results on the determinants of livelihood diversification
Before running the multinomial regression logit model it is necessary to conduct a multicollinearity test.Thus, variance inflation factor was used to test the multicollinearity problem among continuous variables and contingency coefficient was computed to see the degree of association among dummy/categorical variables.The larger value of Variance Inflation Factor (VIF), usually values exceeds 10 indicates a serious multicollinearity problem.The value of contingency coefficient ranges between 0 and 1.A value close to 0 indicates weak association and a value close to 1 indicates presence of strong association.Therefore, contingency coefficient value of 0.75 or above indicates a stronger relationship between explanatory variables and shows presence of multicollinearity (Gujjirati, 2003).The multicolticollinearty test results have shown no serious problems among the continuous and categorical independent variables (Appendix Tables 1 and 2).

Discussions of the econometric model results
Here, the researcher tries to estimate and present findings on the factors that determine choices of different livelihood strategies.Multinomial logit model regression shows the determinant variables for each category versus the base category.Accordingly, the base category is the household who choose on-farm only as a livelihood strategy.This strategy is used as a reference category.The STATA version 11 was used to generate the parameter estimates.The parameter estimates of the multinomial logit model give only the direction of the Yizengaw et al. 2007 effect of explanatory variables on the dependent variable, but the estimates neither stand for the actual size of change nor the probabilities (Chilot, 2007).However, the marginal effect measures the expected change in the probability of a given choice that has been made in relation to the unit change in the explanatory variable.Thus, the predicted probabilities are better interpreted using the marginal effects of the multinomial model (Greene, 2003).
The multinomial logit model analysis shows that out of the total sixteen explanatory variables entered into the model seven variables including sex of the household head, land holding size (ha), market distance (km), livestock holding size (TLU), access to mass media, total household income, and urban linkage were the significant determinants of livelihood diversification strategies up to 10% level of significance (Table 6).

Land size of the household
As hypothesized, land size is significantly and negatively related to on-farm plus non-farm, on-farm plus off-farm, and on-farm plus non-farm plus off-farm livelihood diversification strategies equally at less than 1% level of significance with respect to on-farm only as a reference category.The negative coefficients indicated that the households with large land size are participated less in non/off-farm livelihood diversification strategies and participated more on on-farm only livelihood strategy.Keeping the other factors remain constant, the probability of smallholder farm households livelihood diversification into non-farm, off-farm, and combined off-farm and nonfarm activities other than agriculture decrease by 21.9, 15.3 and 19% respectively as the land size increases by one hectare.The possible reason can be a smaller amount of cultivated land is not enough to the households to make a sufficient living from farm production alone, causing them to look for supplementary non/off-farm income generating activities.Similarly, Adugna (2008) and Fikru (2008) stated that farmers with smaller land size are involved in off-farm diversification activities because of shortage of land to support their livelihood.On the contrary to this result, Kebede et al. (2014) found that the total cultivated land size has positive and significant influence on off-farm participation perhaps households with better holding opted for additional income in casual laborer works to smoothen their farm operations.

Sex of the household head
This variable opposed the pre-assumed expectations, sex has a negative and significant relationship to on-farm plus non-farm livelihood diversification strategy choice at 5% level of significance.The negative coefficient indicates that male headed households are more probably engaged in on-farm only livelihood strategy and less probably engaged in non-farm livelihood diversification strategy.If the other factors remain constant, the likelihood of adopting the on-farm plus nonfarm strategy in favor of male households' decreases by 54.7% and the opposite is true for female headed households with reference to the on-farm only strategy.
The possible reason could be in the study area due to the gender division of labor male headed households are mostly depends on on-farm activities than female headed households.According to key informants, in the study area farming activities like plough are male roles and thus male headed households are usually involved in farming only.On the other hand, female headed households do not plough their land by themselves unless they hired male labor.Thus, they arranged their land for sharecropping and involved in non-farm activities other than their sharecropping income.Moreover, the common non-farm activities like preparing and selling local drinks, spinning and poetry work, petty trading like grain and fruits trading, and selling firewood are women roles and thereby, women engaged in these activities.On the contrary to this result, according to Amare and Belaineh (2013) sex of a household head found to have a significant and positive relation with non/off-farm wage, self and mixed self-wage employment activities participation at 1, 5 and 1% levels of significance, respectively revealing that the male headed households were able to participate in all non/off-farm employment activities compared to female headed households because women are busy by domestic activities.

Mass media
As hypothesized, mass media is positively and significantly related to on-farm plus non-farm and a combination of on-farm, non-farm, and off-farm livelihood diversification strategies at 10 and 5% level of significance respectively.The positive coefficient indicates non/off-farm livelihood diversification is high in favor of the rural households having access to media.On the other hand, households having access to mass media are less likely to participate in on-farm only livelihood strategy.Holding the other factors constant, in favor of the respondents who listen to the radio and watching the television once in a week increases the probability of smallholder farming rural households' participation into on-farm plus non-farm, and a combination of three (onfarm, off-farm and non-farm) livelihood diversification strategies by 11.2 and 17.7% respectively.The possible reason could be that the access to mass media may improve rural households' information on non-farm opportunities.Similarly, Emanuel (2011) found that households who listen to a radio and watching TV at least once in a week were found to have a greater likelihood to be engaged in non-farm work.Because access to TV and radio enhances non-farm activities information which enable the rural farm households to participate in nonfarm livelihood diversification strategy.

Urban linkage
As hypothesized having liaison/connection with the urban area peoples (urban linkage) has a positive and significant influence on on-farm plus non-farm, and a combination of the three (on-farm plus non-farm plus off farm) livelihood diversification strategies at less than 5 and 10% level of significance in the reference to on-farm only strategy.The positive coefficient indicates that if the other factors are remain constant, the probability of the households who have connection with urban dwellers probability of livelihood diversification into on-farm plus non-farm, and a combination of the three (on-farm plus non-farm plus off-farm) activities the marginal effects increased by 13.9 and 10% respectively.This could be that having friends/relatives in the urban area improves the farm households' information on non/off-farm livelihood diversification opportunities.This suggests that improving rural-urban linkages could facilitate non/offfarm livelihood diversification.

Livestock holding
Livestock holding in TLU is negatively and significantly related to on-farm plus off-farm plus non-farm livelihood diversification strategy at 1% level of significance.Moreover, as the livestock numbers in TLU increases by one unit, the likelihood of smallholder rural farm households' choice of combining on-farm, off-farm, and non-farm livelihood diversification strategies decreases by 4.2%, provided that the other factors remain constant.On the other side, a unit TLU increase in livestock increases the rural farm households adoption of on-farm only livelihood strategy.When the livestock size increase by one TLU the probability of households' choice of onfarm plus non-farm, and on-farm plus off-farm livelihood strategies decrease by 3.3 and 0.5% respectively, provided that the other factors remain constant.In the study area, livestock are the source of cash income.Thus, the large livestock holding creates better opportunity to earn more income from livestock production.Therefore, households who obtained the required amount of cash from livestock may not need to involve in non/off-farm activities for additional income whereas farmers with lower livestock holding may be obliged to diversify livelihoods into off-farm and non-farm activities to fulfill household needs.Similarly, Adugna (2008) and Yisehak et al. (2014) found livestock holding has negative and significant relation with non/off-farm livelihood diversification strategies.On the contrary to this result, Amare and Belaineh (2012) found that livestock holding significantly and positively influence participation in wage activities at 5% level of significance.Households with more livestock holding do have the capacity to participate in lucrative non/off-farm employment activities than those households with no or small size livestock holding.

Market distance
On the contrary to the hypothesis, market distance is positively and significantly related to on-farm plus offfarm, and a combination of on-farm, non-farm and offfarm livelihood diversification strategies equally at 5% probability level.As the market distance increases by 1 km, the likelihood of the farm households participation into on-farm plus off-farm, and a combination of on-farm, non-farm, and off-farm livelihood diversification strategies increase with 6.4 and 4.6% respectively, and decrease for on-farm only strategy provided that the other factor remains constant.The possible reason could be that the closer to the market center reduce the transaction costs of acquiring agricultural inputs and profitably selling outputs and hence, good profits may attract them to depend on agriculture only.The other reason could be as the farm households located far from the market center the probability of farm households' engagement into agricultural daily wage activities are higher to resolve liquidity problems.Furthermore, the closer to the market center may expose rural non-farm participants to high competition from factory-made substitutes sold in rural market centers which may lessen rural households' non/off-farm livelihood diversifications.On the contrary to this result, Amare and Belayneh (2012) stated that market distance and non/off-farm diversification had positive and significant relationship because residing nearer to the market enables farm households to engage in non-farm activities (like petty trading and shop keeping).

Total annual household income
As expected, this variable found to have positive and significant influence on households choice of on-farm plus non-farm, on-farm plus off-farm, and combination of on-farm, non-farm and off-farm livelihood diversification strategies at less than 1, 5 and 10% probability level respectively.The positive coefficient implies that households with large total household income are more likely to diversify the livelihood strategies into non-farm and/or off-farm activities.The possible reason can be farm households with large total income can invest in alternative livelihood strategies, especially in non-farm activities.From the model result, other things being constant, the marginal effect reveals that the probability of a household diversifying into non-farm, off-farm, and combined non-farm and off-farm activities increased by 0.1, 69.9 and 31.1%,respectively, for those farm households with more level of income.Similarly, Yisehak et al. (2014) found that the total annual cash income have positive and significant relationship with on-farm plus non-farm; and a combination of on-farm off-farm and nonfarm activities equally at less than 5% probability level.According to their justification the adequate income sources can overcome financial constraints to engage in alternative non/off-farm activities.

CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
Agriculture is found to be the dominant economic activity and contributes 89.9% of the smallholder farm households' total annual household income in the study area.Thus, to improve the smallholder farm households income due attention should be given to agricultural intensification and commercialization of agricultural crops.
Different crop pests and diseases as well as animal diseases are highly existent in the study area.Therefore, to improve agricultural productivity the concerned bodies should design crop and animal disease controlling mechanisms.The survey result shows that despite the high level of smallholder rural farming households' participation in non/off-farm activities, the contribution of non/off-farm income to total household income is small compared to farm income.This reflects that the smallholder rural farming households in the study area are engaged in low profitable, low return and non rewarding non/off-farm activities.Therefore, the smallholder farm households' participation in lucrative non-farm activities needs to be addressed.
Women dominate many of the non-farm activities in the study sites such as household-based food processing, local drink sales, local crafts (pottery and sewing) and petty trading.Therefore, giving financial and vocational assistance to women by the governmental and nongovernmental agencies could accelerate rural livelihood transformation from mere agricultural production to livelihood diversification into non/off farm activities.
In the study area majority (61%) of the sample households are participated in non/off-farm livelihood diversification strategies to pursue their livelihood income.This indicates that in the study area, the agricultural crop production and livestock rearing alone without non/off-farm livelihood diversification is not enough to provide smallholder households income.The econometric analysis demonstrated that the smallholder farming households in the study area are likely to have a diversified livelihood when they have access to mass media, creating relationship with urban peoples, more expansion and recognition of female non-farm roles.Thus, the concerned bodies should give due attention to the significant variables.Thus, it is recommended that the concerned bodies should encourage rural-urban linkages and address the outreach of listening to radio through the expansion of electricity facilities and road networks in the study area.

Figure 1 .
Figure 1.Location of the study area.

Figure 2 .
Figure 2. Livelihood diversification strategies the contribution of livelihood activities to the household income.Source: Own survey result, 2013.

Table 1 .
The distribution of total and sample households in the sample kebeles.

Table 2 .
The relationships between independent variables and dependent variables.
livelihood strategies grouped based on clustering the sources of income that were identified in the study area.

Table 3 .
The contribution of each income sources to the total household net annual income.
Source: own survey data in 2013.
Source"We were born in this kebele.But, the government did not yet distribute the land to us to cultivate and as a result, we are not legally certified land owners.Thus, the only option available for us to access the land is inherit a piece of land from our family, crop land sharing and land renting.By taking this chance we would like to thank the local mediators who mediated the land owners and us (landless) in crop sharing arrangement and land renting.But now it has becomes difficult to live through crop sharing and land renting because the costs of land renting and agricultural crop production raw materials are escalating from time to time.Therefore, the concerned bodies should give us an immediate response."

Table 5
, from the total 8.1% female headed households' majority (6.9%) of them are engaged in non/off-farm activities other than farming activities.This is attributed that females have easy access to participate into non/off-farm activities in the study area.According to informants view this is because the dominant non-farm and off-farm activities in the study area are female roles which includes preparing and selling local drinks (Tella and Areka), petty trading (like grain trading, orange and lemon trading by basket), and fire wood selling.

Table 5 .
Summary of statistics for the categorical variables by choice of livelihood strategies.

Table 6 .
Multinomial logit model estimates of households' choice of livelihood diversification strategies.

Table 5 .
The challenges of crop production.

Table 6 .
Problems for livestock rearing.