Agricultural Livelihood Systems: Overview and Frameworks
1. Meaning of Agricultural Livelihood Systems (ALS)
An Agricultural Livelihood System (ALS) is a comprehensive concept that views a rural household's
economic activities and well-being as an interconnected whole. It moves beyond the narrow focus on
crop and livestock production to encompass the entire range of assets, activities, and strategies that
households use to survive and improve their standard of living.
At its core, an ALS recognizes that:
• Farming is rarely the sole source of income: Households diversify their activities to manage
risk and generate cash.
• Assets are multifaceted: A household's strength is not just its land or animals (natural and
physical capital), but also its labor (human capital), social networks (social capital), and
access to savings and credit (financial capital).
• Decisions are interconnected: A decision about what crop to plant is influenced by available
family labor, off-farm job opportunities, market prices, and the need for cash to pay school
fees.
• The goal is livelihood security: The ultimate objective is not just maximizing agricultural
yield, but ensuring food security, reducing vulnerability, and achieving a sustainable
livelihood.
In essence, ALS is a people-centered approach that starts with understanding how households
actually live, rather than starting with a specific technology or crop.
2. The ALS Approach
The ALS approach is a methodological framework used for research, development, and policy
formulation. It is characterized by being:
• Holistic: It considers all aspects of a household's life—agricultural production, off-farm work,
household dynamics, gender roles, and asset base.
• Systems-oriented: It understands that changing one element (e.g., introducing a new crop)
will affect other parts of the system (e.g., labor requirements, women's time, soil fertility).
• Participatory: It actively involves local communities in defining problems, analyzing
opportunities, and testing solutions, ensuring that interventions are relevant and adopted.
• Multidisciplinary: It requires the integration of knowledge from agronomy, economics,
sociology, gender studies, and ecology.
• Dynamic: It recognizes that livelihoods evolve over time due to external shocks (drought,
price crashes) and internal changes (family cycle, accumulation of assets).
The core question the ALS approach seeks to answer is: "Given their asset base and the context they
live in, what strategies do different types of households use to construct their livelihoods, and how
can their resilience and outcomes be improved?"
3. Frameworks for Understanding ALS
Several conceptual frameworks have been developed to operationalize the ALS approach. The most
influential is the Sustainable Livelihoods Framework (SLF), popularized by DFID (UK's Department
for International Development).
The Sustainable Livelihoods Framework (SLF):
This framework provides a structured way to analyze livelihoods. Its key components are:
1. Vulnerability Context: The external environment in which households exist. This includes
shocks (e.g., floods, conflicts), trends (e.g., population growth, climate change), and
seasonality (e.g., prices, employment opportunities). This is the part of the system that
households cannot control.
2. Livelihood Assets (The 5 Capitals): The resources households have and can use. These are:
o Human Capital: Skills, knowledge, ability to labor, and health.
o Social Capital: Social networks, associations, relationships of trust that enable
cooperation.
o Natural Capital: Natural resources stocks (land, water, biodiversity, air quality).
o Physical Capital: Basic infrastructure (roads, water supply, shelter) and production
equipment (tools, machinery).
o Financial Capital: Savings, credit, and regular inflows of money (remittances,
pensions).
3. Transforming Structures and Processes: These are the institutions, organizations, policies,
and legislation that shape how households access and use assets. They include:
o Structures: Government agencies, private companies, NGOs, traditional leadership.
o Processes: Laws, policies, market mechanisms, cultural norms. This box
determines who has access to which assets and opportunities.
4. Livelihood Strategies: The combination of activities and choices that households make to
achieve their livelihood goals. This includes:
o Agricultural intensification or extensification.
o Livelihood diversification (on/off-farm work, migration).
o Migration.
5. Livelihood Outcomes: The achievements or results of these strategies. Desired outcomes
include:
o Increased income
o Improved food security
o Reduced vulnerability
o More sustainable use of natural resources
o Improved well-being (e.g., health, education)
The framework shows how assets are mediated by structures and processes to create strategies that
lead to outcomes. These outcomes, in turn, can feedback to strengthen or weaken the asset base.
4. Definition of Farming Systems
A Farming System is a subset of the broader livelihood system. It has a more specific, production-
oriented focus.
Definition: A farming system is a population of individual farm systems that have broadly similar
resource bases, enterprise patterns, household livelihoods, and constraints, and for which similar
development strategies and interventions would be appropriate.
It is characterized by:
• Focus: The biophysical and technical aspects of agricultural production.
• Key Components: The combination of crops, livestock, fisheries, and forestry on a farm and
the management practices used (e.g., a maize-bean cropping system with zero grazing dairy
cattle).
• Objective: To understand and improve the productivity and efficiency of the agricultural
production unit itself.
• Scale: Primarily at the field and farm level.
Example: Analyzing the "Mixed Crop-Livestock Farming System in the East African Highlands" would
focus on soil fertility management, crop varieties, animal breeds, and the integration between them.
5. Definition of Farming-Based Livelihood Systems
A Farming-Based Livelihood System is a broader term that sits between the narrow "farming
system" and the all-encompassing "agricultural livelihood system."
Definition: A farming-based livelihood system is one where agricultural production (farming)
remains the primary source of income and food security, but the household also engages in other,
subsidiary activities that are often linked to or dependent on the farm.
Its characteristics are:
• Central Role of Farming: The core of the household's economy is the farm. Other activities
often supplement or support it.
• Linkages: Off-farm activities are frequently related to farming (e.g., selling surplus milk,
trading agricultural inputs, providing tractor hire services, seasonal off-farm work to buy
farm inputs).
• Risk Management: Diversification is used to manage risks associated with farming (e.g., a
bad harvest is offset by remittances from a family member working in town).
Example: A household whose main income is from growing coffee (the farming system) but also
keeps a kitchen garden, has a member with a part-time teaching job, and processes some of its
coffee into roasted beans for sale at a local market. Farming is the core, but the livelihood is built
around it.
Summary of Key Differences
Farming-Based Livelihood Agricultural Livelihood
Feature Farming System
System System (ALS)
Narrow Broad (Whole
Scope Intermediate
(Production) Household)
Crops, livestock, Farming as the core All assets, activities, and
Focus
technology activity strategies
Primary Increased Farm-centered livelihood Holistic livelihood
Goal productivity security security & well-being
Key On-farm On-farm production + On/off-farm, non-farm,
Activities production closely linked off-farm migration
Technical, Integrated, systems- Holistic, participatory,
Approach
agronomic oriented multi-disciplinary
In conclusion, the concept of ALS provides the most complete lens for understanding rural realities. It
starts with the people and their goals, using frameworks like the SLF to design interventions that are
effective, equitable, and sustainable because they are built on a deep understanding of how rural
livelihoods truly function.
