Aetrdp Baseline Survey of Farm Households in Project Locations

Australia East Timor Rural Development Program: This is a summary only of the Baseline Survey results for one of three program districts – Summaries were prepared for Aileu, Bobonaro (this summary), and Viqueque Districts.

AETRDP BASELINE SURVEY OF FARM HOUSEHOLDS IN PROJECT LOCATIONS

Summary of key findings: BOBONARO DISTRICT

Section 1: General information This summary is for the Suco of Leber, Raeheu, Rairobo and Saburai. [A complete set of data tables is available in the Baseline Survey of Farm Households in Project Locations, District and Suco Level Data, July 2002].

Section 2: Household composition and activity The population contains similar numbers of men and women, evenly distributed across age classes.

5% of those 18 years of age and over have off-farm employment; in this group there are more men than women.

17% of those 18 years of age and over do not work on-farm.

56% of men and women, 18 years of age or older, work full-time on-farm. Of this group, 70% are men and 30% are women.

27% of men and women, 18 years of age or older, work part-time on-farm. 80% of this group are women.

80% of 12 - 17 year olds do not work on-farm.

60% of 6 - 11 year olds are in full-time education; similar numbers are boys and girls.

70% of 12 - 17 year olds are in full-time education; slightly more of these are boys than girls.

7.4% of 18 - 45 year olds are in full-time education, but most of these are men.

The average household has 5.4 people; half are men and half are women.

Section 3: Area and type of land used for farming Over half households farm 2 plots of land.

A quarter of households farm 1 plot of land.

22.4% of households farm 3 or more plots of land.

On average, households farm 1.5 hectares.

The most common range class for area of land used for farming (per household) is 0.5 - 1.0 ha. 32.2% of households fall within this range class.

55% of plots are under annual cropping.

1 15% of plots are in tree crops but Leber has proportionally more plots of this type (31%) than other suco.

Only 8% of plots are in rice paddy; but there were no survey households in Leber who had paddy.

56% of plots farmed are flat.

5.2% of plots are steep (> 25 degree slope).

68% of all plots are 100% cropped. 31% of plots are partially cropped.

60% of respondents who did not crop 100% of their land stated that the main reason for this was lack of manpower; 20% stated the reason to be land not used as part of a crop rotation

31% of households have irrigation, and of this 87% is seasonal. 15.2% of plots are irrigated.

More households in Rairobo and Saburai have irrigation than in Leber and Raeheu.

93% of all plots are cultivated by hand; only 7% of plots are cultivated using animals or a tractor.

In Leber, all households surveyed cultivated all plots by hand.

Section 4: Crop production and crop losses

Crop production and sales: Nearly all households grow cassava and maize.

Half households grow sweet potato, taro and bananas.

11% of households in Rairobo and Saburai grow mung beans, but fewer grow mung beans in Leber and Raeheu.

11% of households grow onions, but most of these are in Raeheu (where 42% of households grow onions).

40% of households grow peanuts (but in Saburai the figure is 68% and in Leber 5%).

28% of households grow red beans (but in Leber 87% grow red beans).

29% of households grow rice, but in Raeheu the figure is 57% and in Leber 2.5%.

More Tunis is grown in Raeheu and Rairobo than in Leber and Saburai.

Nearly all households grow cassava and maize but for these crops less than 5% is sold.

A quarter of all households sell bananas and almost as many sell peanuts and red beans. These are the main cash crops in that they are sold by many farmers and earn most of the cash crop revenue.

Other cash crops are onions (grown by 10.3% of farmers) and coffee (grown by 8%); both these crops are grown predominantly for cash sale.

2 Although maize and cassava are staple food crops, they are sold by some farmers and for these farmers they are an important source of cash income (2.9% of farmers sell maize and 7.5% sell cassava).

The following is a “notional” crop production and crop income budget for the ‘average’ Bobonaro household. This is constructed using the mean production and income across all households in the sample rather than across only those households growing or selling the crops. Whilst there may be no households representative of this model (there are unlikely to be any households growing and selling all crops), this notional model is useful in that it gives an indication of the overall importance of each crop across all suco and all households in the survey.

Notional model of crop production and income PER HOUSEHOLD Production Cash sales Consumed Total worth Crop kg $ $ $ Bananas 88 7.39 19.04 26.43 Betel nut 0 0.04 0.06 0.09 Cassava 257 3.27 43.88 47.14 Coconut 24 0.09 2.28 2.36 Coffee 16 5.70 1.21 6.91 Lemon 9 0.76 1.76 2.52 Maize 451 2.69 94.74 97.43 MungBeans 8 0.69 1.63 2.32 Onions 21 7.48 2.27 9.75 Pawpaw 2 0.06 0.30 0.36 Peanuts 41 8.55 11.45 20.01 RedBeans 38 8.83 7.46 16.29 Rice 144 1.38 17.08 18.46 SoyaBeans 10 0.51 4.23 4.74 SweetPotato 95 0.40 11.12 11.51 Taro 81 0.28 11.98 12.27 Tunis 12 0.69 4.44 5.13 Vegetables 7 0.25 0.92 1.17 Guava 0 0.01 0.00 0.01 BlackBeans 4 0.16 1.66 1.82 Squash 17 0.14 3.22 3.37 Lychees 3 0.00 0.00 0.00 Mango 1 0.14 0.14 0.29 Totals: $49.53 $240.87 $290.40

Across all households (refer the notional model above) the most important cash crops are bananas, coffee, onions, peanuts and red beans. When consumption value is considered, the most important crops include the staple food crops of maize, cassava, rice, sweet potato, and taro; the total value (cash and non-cash) of maize and cassava exceeds the value of the cash crops such as coffee, onions and peanuts.

Across all households the average income from the sale of crops is $49 per household. This is equivalent to 17% of the total value of all cropping (including the value of consumption by the household and by animals) which has a gross worth (crop value) per household of $291.

3 27.6% of farmers have no cash income from the selling of crops.

66.1% of farmers earn less than $50 from the sale of crops; 81% of farmers earn less than $100 from the cash sale of crops.

Field losses: Of all field losses reported, 14.6% are serious losses and 85.4% minor losses.

For 960 cases of cropping reported in the sample, crop field losses occur in 70% of cases.

The major field losses occur as a result of wind, mice/rats, and wild pigs, in that order. Of lesser significance are losses from plant diseases, insects and birds. Minor losses are caused by the same pests in the same priority order.

Wind damage is a particular problem in maize.

Pigs are a particular problem in maize, cassava and sweet potato.

Mice/rats are a particular problem in maize, cassava, peanuts and rice.

Birds affect mainly rice and bananas.

Storage losses: Of the 960 cases of cropping reported, storage loses are reported in 32% of cases. Of these 96% were minor losses and 4% major losses.

Major losses occur mainly as a result of damage by mice/rats and worm/flees. Minor losses are from the same causes as well as from fungi.

Storage losses occur mainly in maize, and to a lesser extent in cassava, peanuts, and rice.

Maize is damaged by mice/rats and worms/flees; peanuts, cassava and rice are damaged mainly by mice/rats.

Section 5: Farm expenses Most households use their own retained seed for cropping.

Few households use any purchased farm inputs.

Only 7.5% of households used any inorganic fertiliser, and almost a quarter of these got a ‘free’ supply.

Less than 1% of households used any purchased chemical pesticides.

5% of households received free inputs of some kind or another. 11% used purchased inputs of some kind.

Only 6.7% of farmers purchase seed.

4 The average expenditure on all farm inputs is only $11.55 per household across those households using purchased inputs. The average across all households is only $1.30 per year.

For those households that used fertiliser or pesticide, the total value of these inputs was less than $20 per household.

For those using purchased seed the average expenditure per household was less than $7.

No households in the Bobonaro District sample paid rent for land.

Only 2.3% of households practice sharecropping, and this was mainly for rice cropping.

Section 6: Livestock Almost all households have chickens; 79% have pigs; 32% cattle; 12% buffalo; 18% goats; 20% horses and 2% ducks.

More households have buffalo in Rairobo than in other suco.

Fewer households have cattle and goats in Leber than in other suco.

Fewer households in Raeheu have horses than in other suco.

Average number of animals owned by households: - Numbers: Buffalo Cattle Chickens Ducks Goats Horses Pigs Adult 2.5 2.9 5.5 2.0 2.1 1.3 1.9 animals Young 2.5 2.1 8.0 1.7 1.3 2.9 animals Note: some households may own only adult or only young animals

Average values for animals: - Dollars: Buffalo Cattle Chickens Ducks Goats Horses Pigs Adult 242 210 6.50 3.0 67 115 103 animals Young 115 96 2.36 22 87 23 animals

Number of households selling animals, numbers sold and average income from selling animals: - Buffalo Cattle Chickens Goats Horses Pigs % of households 2.3% 8.1% 61% 2.3% 1.2% 22.5% selling animals Nos. of animals sold 1.0 1.5 4.7 1.3 1.0 1.4 Average income / HH $152 $229 $23 $50 $75 $99

5 Notional income from selling animals across all households in the sample: From selling Buffalo $3.50 From selling Cattle $18.50 From selling Chickens $14.00 From selling Goats $1.20 From selling Pigs $22.00 Total ‘notional’ income: $59.20

Few households vaccinate animals. Less than 10% vaccinate any type of animal.

Only 2.5% of households vaccinate chickens

Almost 10% of households vaccinate buffalo, cattle and horses. 7.3% vaccinate pigs.

There is no Section 7 (Fishing)

Section 8: Other income 21.3% of households plant trees for firewood or timber; most of these are in Rairobo.

For those that planted trees, most households planted less than 50 trees.

Hunting and catching wild animals: 6.3% of households caught or hunted wild animals; more did this in Leber than in other suco. Most of these households hunted or caught pigs.

For those households hunting or catching wild animals, the average cash income was $12.50 from pigs and $75 for deer, and for other small animals $1.00

The value of consumption income was pigs $28, deer $35, other small animals $15.

For those households that caught or hunted wild animals the average cash and consumption income from the activity is $48.27.

Averaged across all households in the sample (regardless of whether they hunted or caught wild animals) the average income is for pigs $1.92; deer $1.03; other small animals $0.10; or $3.05 per household across all animal types.

Other produce sales: 29.3% of households sell other produce; mainly eggs. The average income from selling eggs is $4.08 per household.

Other activities earned more money that selling eggs but a lot fewer households were engaged in the activity. For example, selling crafts earned $135 per household (2 households); meat sales $75 (2 households).

For those households earning income from other activities, the average income per household was $26.03. Across all 174 households sampled, the average is $8.50.

6 Off-farm income: 14.9% of households earned off-farm income. This was mainly from trade stores or paid employment.

For those with off-farm income, the average income is $195; across all households in the survey $29.

Section 9: Consumption expenditure: Most households spend money each month on cereals purchases, oil, cooking ingredients and tobacco. The average expenditure on food items is $11.70 per household.

The largest single item within the food group is for cereals (including rice) at $6.35 per month. For most other items the average is less than $1 per month.

The monthly expenditure on other goods (toiletries, school fees, travel costs, electricity/power, clothing, household items, medical. etc.) is $11.70 per household per month.

The total for both groups combined is $17.90 per household per month; equivalent to $215 per household per year.

Section 10: Money loaned and borrowed 7.5% of households lend money to others. The average amount lent as $39. (Across all households, irrespective of whether lending, $2.92).

The main purpose of lending to other households is for celebrations and for house repairs.

21.3% of households borrow money from others. For these households, the borrowing is mainly from relatives (67%); friends (13.5%); CEP (10.8%); and other sources (8%).

The average amount borrowed is $49.73; the larger amounts are borrowed from the CEP. (Notional borrowing across all 174 households is $10.57).

Borrowing from CEP is mainly for land, non-farm business, or house repairs.

If borrowing from friends and relatives, the loan term is generally less than 3 months. If from the CEP, 1 - 2 years, or longer.

CEP loans all require collateral. Across all loan types, 21% require collateral.

For loans from friends, 12% require collateral.

The average interest rate from the CEP is 22.5%; from relatives and friends, 10% or less.

14% of households received money from the church or NGO’s. Of these, 54% received less than $40, and 25% received more than $100.

Section 11: Employed labour, transport, processing and irrigation costs 5.7% of households employed labour. More households in Saburai employed labour than in other suco.

7 For households that employed labour, the average number of days labour was employed for was 11.3 days. Across all households in the sample, the notional labour days employed is 0.64 days per household.

For those who employed labour, for 60% of households the total value of cash and in-kind payments is less than $20 per year; for 10% of households the total value of payments is between $80 - $100.

8% of households spend money on transporting crops or livestock to market. The average expenditure for those spending on transport is $14 for crops, and $11 for livestock. Across all households the notional figure is an average of $1.20 for crops and livestock.

92% of households spend no money on transporting crops or livestock.

2.3% of households spend money on processing crops. The average amount is $7.20 for rice and $4.25 for maize. Across all households the notional average figure is $0.34 per household.

5.7% of households spend money on irrigation. The average spending is $11 per household (with a notional average across all households of $0.63).

Section 12: Farm equipment Apart from basic tools (such as machete, axes, etc) households own very few tools. Only 3.4% of households own a rice winnower; only 0.6% own a rice mill.

Noone in the sample survey owned any kind of tractor or plough.

3% of households hired a tractor and paid on average $31.40 for the hire.

Section 13: Access to services 29.3% of households take drinking water from a tap. 57.4% take drinking water from an unprotected source of some kind (unprotected well, river or stream, unprotected spring).

31.6% of households have drinking water next to the house.

Of those who have to walk to fetch drinking water, 8.6% have to walk more than 500 metres. 43.6% walk more than 100 meters. (Across all households, 5.8% walk more than 500 metres, 30% walk more than 100 meters).

54.6% of households live within 15 mins walk from a vehicle passable road; 33.2% have to walk more than 1 hour to get to a vehicle passable road.

Only 31.6% of households have access to a vehicle passable road in the wet season. In Leber the figure is 22.5% and in Rairobo 40%.

All households live more than 1 hour (walk and or bus/car) away from a hospital. 20% live more than 4 hours from a hospital. 67% live more than 3 hours from a hospital. 65% of households walk to hospital.

8 42% of households are less than 15 minutes from a district health clinic. 27% of households are more than an hour away. 99% of households walk to the district health centre.

43% of households are within 15 minutes of a primary school. 18.4% are more than one hour away. 99% of households walk to the primary school.

Over 99% of households are more than one hour from a secondary school. 91% of households use walking together with car/bus to get to the secondary school. 6% walk.

98% of households are more than one hour from a market. 86% of households walk to the market.

Section 14: Food security 90% of households report not enough rice or maize at some time of the year. In Raeheu everyone reports not having enough rice or maize.

Number of months with not enough rice or maize: - Number of months not Percent of households enough rice or maize who report not enough 2 months 12.1% 3 months 24.8% 4 months 31.8% 5 months 22.3% 6 months 8.9%

The hungry period is mainly between November and February. Some report an extended period from September to March.

Strategies used to cope with shortage of rice or maize: - Strategy Percent of households Ate less food 75.3% Switched to other food 67.8% Ate more vegetables and meat 13.8% Received assistance 1.7% Purchased rice or maize 74.7% Other 3.4% Note: Families can adopt more than one strategy

62% of affected households sell livestock to buy more food, 15% borrow money, 46% use cash savings.

Section 15: Dwelling and other buildings 12% of households are living in emergency shelters.

41% of households are living in dwellings that are damaged and requiring some repairs, 13% need extensive repairs.

9 The bulk of houses that are in need of repair are made of traditional materials with a thatch or tin roof.

47% of emergency shelter is in need of repairs.

Households are asset poor. 52% have none of the assets listed on the schedule. Only 30% of households have a radio. 27% have a pit toilet. Less than 1% of households own a bicycle. None owned a motorbike, car, fridge or TV. Only 1% of households have a water type toilet.

Section 16: Knowledge of practices and sustainable technologies The major resource management problems are decrease in soil fertility (34% of households); topsoil erosion (28%); weeds (21%).

27% of households reported no major resource management problems.

32% of households use contour hedgerow planting or contour ridges.

44% of households have a rest period for slash and burn farming.

35% of households do not burn grazing lands.

Most common practices for improved cropping are: - Intercropping (60% of households) Hand weed control (44%) Crop rotations (24%) Improved yield crop varieties (7.5%) Legumes (5.2%) Chemical fertiliser (1.7%) Mulching (7%)

No households used chemical weed control; none used integrated pests management.

For those with irrigation, the main water management techniques used are: - Levee banks (28.6% of households) Drain cleaning (2.4%) Hand watering (26%) Flood irrigation (21%) Other systems (12%)

No households used chemicals for treating stored crops.

98% of households store crops in the kitchen (using smoke from the fire to kill insects) 7.5% of households used sealed containers for storage 4.6% of households used high storage on poles (e.g. maize stored in trees)

Virtually no farmers are using improved animal breeds.

10 31% of farmers supplementary fed pigs or other animals.

42% use pen feeding.

Only 2.3% vaccinate animals.

53% use some form of controlled grazing.

No respondents reported using animal drenching for intestinal parasites.

Section 17: Community participation 90% of households do not participate in any king of community group (other than the church).

Those that do participate are mainly in a farming group, but other groups functioning are women’s’ affairs and youth groups.

On average, for those that did attend a community group, they attended less than twice in the last 3 months.

Section 18: Subjective well-being When asked to list the most important factors for improving living standards, the most important factors were Employment, Education, Housing and Health (in that order). Income was also reflected in demand for products.

When asked to rank their living standard on a nine-step ladder (with step 1 at the bottom, and step 9 the top), only 10% of the households considered that they are on the bottom step.

38.5% considered that they are on the second lowest step; 37.4% on the third step.

85.7% of households consider that they are on the bottom three steps (representing the three poorest steps on the 9-step ladder).

The following graph shows the percentage of households perceiving their situation to be less than adequate with respect to the factor shown. (The percentage perceiving their children’s education to be less than adequate has been adjusted by removing those households with no children at school).

11 % of households perception less than adequate

Income Education Health Clothing Housing Food

0.0% 20.0% 40.0% 60.0% 80.0%

54.5% of households consider that a family needs more than $150 per month to be considered "not poor".

96% of households perceive that they have less than the perceived level of income to be considered “not poor”. Therefore, 96% of households consider themselves to be poor.

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