A total of 56 household interviews were completed using a semi-structured questionnaire. Data collected through the wide spectrum of methods and instruments discussed above were analyzed using a wide range of techniques. These included post-interview brainstorming and collation of notes , and quantitative analysis of rank/score data and scale data collected using pre-designed tables and semi-structured questionnaires.Trading is most common in Kazungula District, which is not surprising being a border town next to the country’s tourist capital, Livingstone. Because of the nature of the terrain and inadequate land in Sinazongwe, many communities have resorted to fishing considering the fact that there are no restrictions involved as to what time of the year fishing is allowed or who should/shouldn’t fish.
This is unlike in Namwala, where the main rivers such as Namwala and Kafue are only open for fishing over the period March through to November.Table 2 presents the proportions of the interviewed focus groups that ranked each activity among the top three most important activities at the time of the survey and 10 years before,disaggregated by district and food security category. Table 2 also confirms the importance of crop agriculture and livestock in the study area with 81 percent and 53 percent of all the focus groups ranking them among the top three,flood and drain tray respectively.As expected, the relative importance of these two activities is higher as we go higher on the food security scale—towards the food secure stratum. More than 90 percent of the food secure, for example, ranked field crop production among the top three most important livelihood activities. The relatively lower weight placed on agriculture and livestock by the food insecure and extremely food insecure groups means that these groups place relatively higher weight on other activities. Gardening, for example, seems to be a significant preoccupation of the food insecure segments of the society, ranked highly by at least 58 percent of the groups.
Piece work and trading are also quite important among these groups with about half the interviewed FI and EFI focus groups ranking them in the top three.Compared to agriculture-based activities, piece work and trading are often regarded inferior and adopted as means for coping with harsh realities of food insecurity. Thus, the waning importance of field crops and livestock and growing importance of piece work over the 10 years prior to the survey suggest an increase in levels of vulnerability. The importance of livestock as a source of livelihood went down by 21 percent while gardening increased by as much as 29 percent between 1996 and 2006. However, the fact that crops and livestock are important sources of livelihood shows that agriculture is key in these communities. While crops of various types are very important in day to day life during normal years, livestock have from time to time played the role of a life saver during bad seasons. Field crops and livestock are the two most important sources of income, together representing almost half of the income earned by rural households. These results are consistent with , who found that field crops generated most of the livelihood incomes across social groups in West Africa.
When animal products and services are considered, the contribution of the two sources to income extends to about 60 percent. While field crop production received a higher score as a livelihood activity in a more general sense than did livestock rearing, livestock and their products represent a much more important source of income. When only live animals and meat sales are considered, livestock generate 26 percent of all income earned by the households, compared to field crops’ 21 percent. When animal products are taken into account, the contribution of livestock swells to 39 percent, which is almost double the contribution of field crops. The dominance of livestock as an income earner holds both in the total sample as well as among most individual food security sub-samples. This is consistent with the national picture in which livestock is argued to contribute at least 50 percent of agricultural gross domestic product.Generally, small scale farmers grow most of their field crops for consumption and only sell a few when need arises. On the contrary, livestock is rarely eaten but rather sold to solve household problems.In a non-hotspot district, one was considered wealthy depending on the number of cattle one owned. Cattle are sold for other various purposes such as building a house, dowry payments, and settling conflicts and exchanged for other assets including vehicles.