3.2.2 The Contribution of Forest-Based Income to Household Budget

One of the greatest advantages of small forest-based enterprises when compared with larger enterprises (and especially export-oriented ones) is that benefits accrue directly to the local rural households, often providing crucial sources of cash income. In many cases a significant percentage of a household's total income (or at least their cash income) is generated through forest-based activities. In northeast Brazil, for example, May et al. (1985a), found that during the babassu harvest season, an average of 34.8% of a household's total income (including non-cash income) is earned by babassu kernel gathering and processing (see Table 3.15)

Table 3.17: Forest product use by household rice self-sufficiency¹ (in %)

Another example of the importance of forest-based activities for rural households comes from a study in rural Sierra Leone which found that 18.6% of the farmers considered non-agricultural enterprises (including processing activities, fuelwood collection, hunting, fishing, palm wine tapping, craft and construction) their most important activity in terms of labour input and benefits for the household. A further 14% considered them as the second most important activity after farming (Engel et al. 1985).

Kamara's study in rural Sierra Leone found that fuelwood collection and trade were important sources of income for farmers. The average household income from fuelwood sales was Le 56 in one region and Le 27.5 in another. This fuelwood income compares with a mixed upland rice income of Le 123.5 and Le 126.3 respectively (see Tables 3.16a and 3.16b). In rural Bo, where fuelwood sales are more lucrative, the returns per man equivalent day from fuelwood sale (Le 1.07) are only slightly less than those from upland rice farming (Le 1·.64). It is evident that in these regions fuelwood sales make a significant contribution to overall household income.

The income earned from forest product gathering and processing is of especially critical importance to the rural poor. For these households forest earned income often contributes substantially to the total household budget (see Table 3.17). In Botswana, Cecelski (1984) asserts that gathering is a more important economic activity for the poor than farming. For example, in drought-stricken areas near Accra in Ghana, charcoal making from wood on fallow agricultural land provides the only source of household income (Cecelski 1984).

Table 3.18: Calories supplied by men and women

	Calories per gram	Calories supplied by men	Calories supplied by women
Blowpipe hunting Other hunting Bamboo rat Fish Tubers Other vegetable Honey Traded Food1 Total	1.9 1.9 1.9 1.0 1.0 0.3 2.86 3.6 -	784,698.1 227,614.3 7,690.079 18,305.28 695,414.5 27,069.75 661,568.10 2,490,907.30 4,913,267.2	0 5,606.9 2,070.24 16,384.86 1,373,917.5 41,840.64 95,175.65 880,124.4 2,415,120.0
1 All traded food is for rattan collection.
Source: Endicott, 1980.

In a village survey in the Philippines, Siebert and Belsky (1985) found that more than 50% of the villagers earn income from timber and rattan sales. For the poorer third of the villagers, rattan sales are a major source of income (see Table 3.17). The income earned from gathering forest products clearly is of more crucial importance for the poorer households; 79% of the poorer households rely on forest-based activities compared to 41% of the wealthier households. Rattan collectors earn almost twice that of agricultural labourers (20-25 pesos/day compared with 10-15 pesos/day). Over the one year study period Siebert and Belsky estimate the villagers collected 48,000 poles worth 72,000 pesos (6,400 $US).

Similarly, in another study in the Philippines, Connelly (1985) found that the income earned in the collection of rattan and copal (a resin from Agathis dammara) was consistently higher than that earned as agricultural wage labour (an average 15 pesos/day compared with 10 pesos/day). Connelly reports that rattan and copal collection had previously been seasonal activities in the study area; however, now they are year-round activities occupying more than 10% of the men's time daily (or an equivalent 40 days labour a year).

In an interesting study of the forest dwelling Batek in Malaysia, Endicott (1980) reports that rattan collection is the most time consuming activity for men, and provides the main item for trade exchange for rice.

Rattan trade provided the greatest amount of food (the amount of time spent for the amount of food procured) compared with hunting and food gathering (see Table 3.18).

In some areas of Indonesia, Weinstock (1983) found that rattan had been incorporated into the fallow system of swidden agriculturalists. Production from older fallow gardens yields approximately 3 tonnes (worth several thousand dollars of income). However, he notes that economic pressures often induce farmers to sell their rattan early despite the fact that it is considerably less valuable.

Hunting and the trade of game meat are extremely lucrative forest-based enterprises. In Peru, a hare hunter can readily earn US$1350 a month compared with the agricultural labourer's wage of US$100 a month. In Ghana, a grasscutter (rodent) sells for at least 200 cedis in rural areas and as much as 700-3,400 cedis in urban Accra (by comparison, the daily minimum wage is 90 cedis); a farmer-hunter can earn more from hunting than from agricultural production. Agricultural production is valued for the diversity of foods produced as well as the insurance agricultural lands provide (i.e. they can be pledged against loans). (Asibey 1986) Ntiamoa-Baidu (1987) notes that many rural women in Ghana depend on the retail trade of bushmeat. Thus, forest-based enterprises such as hunting can be essential sources of income for many households.

3.3 The participants in forest-based income earning activities

It is often implied that the collection of forest products as a major source of income is limited to forest-dwelling peoples. While forest-dwellers do rely to a large extent on forest products, the forest product gathering and processing industries are far from limited to this populace. Many agriculturalists supplement their income through gathering and processing of forest products.

In many societies, individuals have traditionally had unrestricted access to forest resources. Poorer people have thus been able to exploit the forests for food, fuel and marketable products. While forest gathering activities are not restricted to the poor, the poor tend to rely on these activities for meeting a greater share of their basic needs. Women also depend on forest gathering activities for income generation, in part because of the availability and accessibility of these resources. Similarly, as investment opportunities or employment sources, small-scale enterprises appear to be relatively accessible to the poor and so also benefit the landless and other disadvantaged groups.

However, with increasing privatisation of land and expanding agriculture, forest-based enterprises may come to rely less on "open" supplies of forest products and raw materials and more on leasing or contracting the resources on private land.

3.3.1 The Importance of Forest-Based Activities for Poorer Households

While forest-based activities provide a supplementary source of income for wealthier farmers, their importance for poorer farmers can be crucial. The study by Kilby and Liedholm (1986) of non-farm activities shows that poor people earn a greater share of their income from non-farm activities than do middle and upper income people (see Table 3.19).

In Siebert and Belsky's Filipino study, it was the poorer villagers who were most dependent on rattan collection and sales. Table 3.17 shows the correlation between household wealth (measured in terms of a household's ability to provide food through agricultural activities (rice self-sufficiency)) and reliance on rattan collection as a ma or source of income. For those in the poorest sectors, rattan and timber labour are essential economic activities, the better off agriculturalists on the other hand use rattan as an emergency source of income in hard times such as when there is a poor harvest.

Similarly, Kamara (1986) found that in Sierra Leone the fuelwood trade is dominated by poorer households. In general, households with sufficient assets and alternative income generating activities do not sell fuelwood for the market.

While the fuelwood trade is generally dominated by the poor, sometimes there is also a second rung within the ranks of the poor: in Kweteng, Botswana, Kgathi (1981) notes that fuelwood traders are among the "richer" of the poor, often having the means to transport fuel by donkey cart or rented truck.

With increasing privatisation of land and expanding agriculture, access to free and open forest is becoming restricted. As a result, only richer gatherers can afford to pay fees to use private land. Thus, the poor are gradually losing one of their main sources of income. While no studies have explored this issue, it can be postulated that this reduces the number of income-earning options for the poor, making them more susceptible to economic fluctuations (e.g. in demand for labour) and to seasonal variations in food availability.

Table 3.19: Size of land holding and relative importance of non-farm income in total household income

Country	Size of holding		Non-farm Income share in total household income %	Total household income $
Korea - 1980	0.00 - 1.23 1.24 - 2.47 2.48 - 3.70 3.71 - 4.94 4.95 +	acres acres acres acres acres	74% 39 28 23 16	$ 3,005 3,450 4,321 5,472 7,401
Taiwan - 1975	0.00 - 1.23 1.24 - 2.47 2.48 - 3.71 3.72 - 4.94 4.95 +	acres acres acres acres acres	70% 52 44 39 26	$2,768 3,442 3,701 4,570 5,566
Thailand - 1980-811 (4 Regions)	0.00 - 4.10 4.20 - 10.20 10.30 - 41.00 41.00 +	acres acres acres acres	88% 72 56 45	$1,362 974 1,613 1,654
Sierra Leone - 19742	0.00 - 1.00 1.01- 5.00 5.01 - 10.00 10.01 - 15.00 15.00 +	acres acres acres acres acres	50% 23 14 12 15	$ 587 404 546 770 927
Northern Nigeria - 1974	0.00 - 2.46 2.47 - 4.93 4.94 - 7.40 7.41 - 9.87 9.88 +	acres acres acres acres acres	57% 31 26 15 24	$479 377 569 769 868
1 Includes data from 550 rural village households nation-wide. Thus, the average non-farm share is lower than that reported. 2 Thailand: Figures derived from primary data generated by a survey conducted by the Thai Rural Off-Farm Employment Project of 424 rural village households in four regions. Although households were chosen at random within villages, some of the villages were chosen because of the variety of non-farm activities in the village. Thus, they are not "representative" of the entire country. The average non-farm income share is 65% in this example compared with 43% for farm households reported for the entire country.
Source: Kilby and Liedholm, 1986.

In the Philippines, Hyman (1983a) found that many fuelwood traders were not dependent on communal sources for their wood. Thirty-nine percent of the fuelwood sellers collected wood exclusively from their own land, a further thirty percent got their supplies from other people's land at a contracted price, while only six percent got all their wood free from somewhere other than their own land.

The minor forest product trade in India represents an example of another problem that faces the poor forest gatherer. While this trade employs millions of poor rural people, many authors note that poor gatherers are often exploited by middlemen (either private or government) who control access to the market. Thus, despite the fact that these forest-based activities provide some means of existence, often they provide no means for future investment either in forest-gathering or agriculture.

3.3.2 The Role of Women in Forest-Based Income Earning Activities

The role of women in meeting their household's basic food needs varies from society to society. Generally, men have greater access to the cash economy and often generate cash as their primary activity, while women's activities revolve more around the subsistence needs of the household -most particularly food production and child care. Yet it is frequently the case that women also make important contributions to the household's cash income and that they are often involved in forest-based income earning activities. But, there are also certain general restrictions and patterns to women's cash earning activities.

Though a woman's cash earning may be substantial, it is usually not undertaken in lieu of traditional women's responsibilities, which often means that it must be undertaken at home, and not on a "full-time" basis. The processing of many forest products can be performed at or near the home, thus allowing women to combine income earning activities with other household chores such as child care. Similarly, women and especially poorer women, can combine forest product gathering activities for their household's use as well as for sale.

An excellent example of this is found in Usambara, Tanzania, where Fleuret (1979a) found that young unmarried women commonly relied on the sale of wild leaves. She concluded that this trade is a significant source of income for single (or widowed) women in difficult economic circumstances.

Fisseha and Milimo's study in Zambia showed that many forest-based processing enterprises involve women (see Table 3.3 and Table 3.4). For example, they own (48%) and work for (39%) a significant share of the broom making, bamboo/cane processing and twine/rope making ("other") enterprises. In addition, they are commonly involved with vending forest processed products. Women also sell great quantities of processed forest foods such as traditional beers made from forest fruits. In Zambia, Fisseha found that 36% of rural small enterprise employment is in traditional beer brewing. In addition, most food processing activities depend on fuelwood energies.

The fuelwood trade is often dominated by women. In Sierra Leone, for example, 80% of the urban fuelwood sellers are women while in rural Bo, 67% of the marketed fuelwood is collected by women, and in rural Makeni they collect 72% of the marketed wood (Kamara 1986). In a survey of women fuelwood collectors in Gujurat, India, Buch and Bhatt (1980) found that 70% of the women in the area collected fuelwood for sale for more than 25 days of the year. These fuelwood sales provided an average monthly income of Rs. 120. Ninety-four percent of the women sold collected wood to retail buyers. Most of the cash income was then used for buying food provisions.

As fuelwood collection and marketing becomes more complicated, men also enter into the trade. Since donkeys, carts, or mechanised means of transportation are often available only to men, men tend to dominate when transportation distances grow. In addition, because women generally have less access to land than men, where ownership of the trees is important the trade may also be dominated by men. In the Philippines, where the vast majority of fuelwood is collected from privately owned land rather than common forests, Hyman (1983a) found that the fuelwood trade was dominated by men. On average, men spend 87 hours/year involved with fuelwood trade compared with women's 20 hours/year average. Kgathi also found that the fuelwood trade was dominated by men in Kweteng, Botswana (1981). In Sierra Leone, Kamara found that of the fuelwood collected by men, the greater portion is sold rather than consumed in the household (see Table 3.9). The net result of the growing participation of men in fuelwood production and trade is uncertain. On the one hand, it may free women from one of their most tiresome chores, though alternatively, it may deprive them of an important source of income.

The evidence suggests that the gathering and processing of forest products may be favoured by women because of:

- ease of access to forest resources;

- possibility of combining "subsistence" gathering with income earning activities;

- flexibility of location of enterprise (i.e. near home);

- their knowledge about forest products through subsistence use.

3.3.3 The Role of Women in Household Food Security

Women play an essential role in agricultural production. Their specific roles and tasks may vary from region to region, but as the figures in Tables 3.20 and 3.21 indicate, their contribution ís significant. They also make important contributions to the household's cash income. Table 3.22 indicates that the majority of women's labour may be devoted to cash earning activities, though this, too, varies considerably. In Ghana, for example, women spend 6.3 hours/day earning cash income compared with 2 hours/day in agricultural production and 3.6 hours/day for fuel collection and cooking.

In a study of five villages in India, Dasgupta and Maiti (1986) found that women contributed a significant percentage of the total household income. Their cash-contribution ranged from an average of 19% of the total household income in Suriyan, Himachal Radesh, to an average of 50% of the household income in Deokhop, Maharashtra (see Table 3.22).

While there are a number of possible factors contributing to the amount of time women spend in cash-earning activities, in Mozambique (where only 0.1 hours/day was spent in non-agricultural income earning activities) there were simply fewer opportunities for women in the study area to engage in cash earning enterprises (see Table 3.20)(Cecelski 1987).

Table 3.20: A rural woman's work is never done.... (hours per day)

Country	Agricultural work1	Non-agricul- tural work2	Fuel collection and cooking	Other3	Total hours worked
Indonesia Irrigated village Upland village	2.9 3.1	0.2 0.5	1.5 2.4	6.9 6.0	11.5 12.0
India Average of five villages	3.9	4.0	4.8	0.9	13.6
Ghana Savannah village Fishing village Forest village	1.3 2.0 3.8	2.7 6.3 0.3	5.0 3.6 4.1	5.0 2.1 5.8	14.0 14.0 14.0
Mozambique Average of four villages	3.1	0.1	1.8	9.0	14.0
Peru Coastal desert Sierra High Sierra	1.4 4.0 4.0	2.0 1.0 2.0	2.2 3.8 2.9	5.6 2.4 2.8	11.2 11.2 11.7
1 Family subsistence, space wage employment and livestock raising.
2 Crafts, food processing and trade.
3 Cleaning, child care, social, community and religious activities; for Ghana, travel time is also included here.
Source: Cecelski, 1987.

Table 3.21: Females as percentage of the total agricultural labour force (mean percent by region)

In Ghana, there are opportunities for women to earn cash. Ardayfío (1985) found that in all of the households surveyed, women were the major contributors to household income, both in terms of time spent and money earned. They were involved in a wide range of activities including agricultural production, food processing, and artisanry (two important activities were charcoal production and fish smoking). Cash income is an important component of household food security in Ghana, as more than 75% of the weekly household expenditures are on food.

In the study area in Ghana, deforestation has brought with it negative consequences for food security: either more time must be spent gathering or more money spent purchasing increasingly scarce fuelwood. The increased time spent gathering fuelwood leaves less time for cash earning activities, while more expensive purchased fuelwood leaves less money for buying food. Furthermore, many income-earning activities, such as fish-smoking and beer-making, depend on fuelwood. Consequently, as the price of fuelwood increases (either in labour or cash), the profitability of the enterprise diminishes. Ardayfio suggests that the constraints placed on women's income earning potential by fuelwood scarcity may have the most harmful impact on food security for the household.

The constraint of time may be another major factor limiting women's further involvement in income generation. In northern India, Srinivasan (1984) reports that as a result of a development project geared to ease women's work loads, women quickly became involved in income earning enterprises. In the Philippines women pay for fuelwood in order to spend their time making mats for sale rather than collecting fuelwood (Cecelski 1984).

Table 3.22: Contribution of women to family income in different villages of observation (ten selected families)