Policy Reforms and Rural Livelihoods Sustainability: Challenges and Opportunities - Empirical Evidence from the Adoption of Land Use Consolidation (LUC) Policy in Rwanda.

Abstract

In this study, descriptive statistics are used to find-out where households that have already adopted Land Use Consolidation (LUC) more rely for food acquisition. Pooled OLS is mobilized to identify the level of magnitude LUC's outcomes affect food security at household level. Lorenz curve and Gini Index are used to find out how household’s income is distributed among households in LUC. Finally, Probit regression model is applied to identify and understand factors that determine a household's level of satisfaction when in LUC. First, the results of this study suggest that the majority of households (about 84%) in LUC have acceptable food consumption score. Second, it shows that households in LUC are more reliant to market for food acquisition and about 72% of food is acquired from the market. Third, it estimates elasticity of crop yield, extension services and expenditure on food items on household's food consumption score to be about 46%, 26% and 13% respectively. Fourth, it demonstrates that income from agricultural production is more inequitably distributed among those households and estimates a Gini Index of 0.69 and 0.52 for the distribution of income from agricultural and household's total income respectively. Finally, it shows that the majority of households (about 62%) in LUC are highly satisfied with the adoption of LUC with a probability of satisfaction higher than 0.7. Moreover, it shows that households headed by females are more satisfied with LUC adoption than those headed by males. In addition, the satisfaction variability is more predictable in households headed by males.JRC.D.5-Food Securit