Analysis of small-scale farmers’ exposure to environmental risks: Empirical evidence from rural Rwanda

Abstract

Agriculture is a backbone of economy in Rwanda. Even if the sector faces environmental challenges, people still depend on it for subsistence and  income. Essentially, there is an urgent need of coping and mitigation strategies to shocks. We used the fifth integrated household living conditions  survey (EICV 5) cross-sectional data collected from October 2016 to October 2017 by the National Institute of Statistics of Rwanda (NISR). The study  used a sample size of 3,081 rural farm households, descriptive statistics were computed to describe the main socioeconomic characteristics of the  smallscale farmers in rural Rwanda and the independent samples test was performed to compare means between exposed and non-exposed  farmers to environmental risks. Results revealed that some farmers have been exposed to environmental risks and even more affected by impact  born from shocks like destructive rains (60.2 per cent), mountain slides (22 per cent) and floods (4.8 per cent). Except for total household  consumption expenditures, no significant difference was observed between exposed and non-exposed farmers in terms of crop production, land  size, livestock and farm expenditures. Results from econometric analysis identified the age, livestock, farm output, land consolidation, land tenure  and farm expenses as the main factors affecting the farmers’ exposure to environmental risks. From these finding, farmers should be trained on  environmental risks, their effects, as well as the farming practices to cope with them.