Livelihood security of small and marginal farmers towards agricultural diversification

Abstract

Livelihood comprises the capabilities, assets and activities required as the means of living. A livelihood is considered secure when it can cope up with and recover from stress or shocks and maintain or enhance its capabilities and assets. A multistage, purposive and random sampling technique were used for this study. Three districts of Saurashtra region were selected purposively for the study namely Junagadh, Rajkot and Gir Somnath. In the present study, livelihood security was operationalized as adequate access to food security, occupational/ financial security, habitat security, educational security, health security, social security and environmental security. The results of the study revealed that the majority (58.73 percent) of small farmers had medium level of livelihood security. In case of marginal farmers, majority (53.97 percent) of farmers had medium level of livelihood security.