Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/321698 
Year of Publication: 
2019
Citation: 
[Journal:] Bio-based and Applied Economics (BAE) [ISSN:] 2280-6172 [Volume:] 8 [Issue:] 2 [Year:] 2019 [Pages:] 133-159
Publisher: 
Firenze University Press, Florence
Abstract: 
For many smallholder farmers in the Mount Elgon region of Uganda, Arabica coffee cultivation is the major income-generating activity. Although it is widely known that smallholder coffee farmers often live under conditions that barely assure their survival, research to date has failed to examine the composition and distribution of wellbeing within this group. In the present study, a composite indicator of wellbeing is created using information collected from interviews with 431 coffee-cultivating households to investigate wellbeing in the Mount Elgon region of Uganda. From results of an explorative Principal Components Analysis, the factors of trust, security, housing, and landholding, covering a total of ten indicators, provided a comprehensive measure of wellbeing, explaining 81.20% of the total variance. The results show substantial differences in wellbeing within the sub-counties of Bulegeni, Simu, and Namisuni, and even greater differences between these sub-counties. These differences are explained primarily by the physical wellbeing factors of housing and landholding. Efforts to improve the quality of housing, particularly in Namisuni and Bulegeni, for instance, by providing improved access to financial services, construction loans, or subsidized prices for bricks and other construction materials, as well as official land registration in all three sub-counties could improve the wellbeing of households in this area.
Subjects: 
Composite Indicator
Mount Elgon
smallholder coffee farmers
Uganda
wellbeing
JEL: 
I31
Q12
R21
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Creative Commons License: 
cc-by Logo
Document Type: 
Article

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