Non-Farm Income: The Struggles of the Rural Poor in Malawi

This research aimed at exploring the nature and prevalence of non-farm income in rural Malawian communities. It also examined endogenic factors and motives for non-farm income (NFI) and how it affected livelihoods of different types of households. The study was conducted at Kachigwada village in Mzimba, Northern Ma-lawi and at Liwonde village in Chiradzulu in Southern Malawi. The study used the Sustainable Livelihood Framework and took the qualitative perspective with acceptance of quantitative data. A total of 47 household interviews, 2 focus group discussion and 3 key informant interviews were done. The results showed an increased dependence on NFI with 89% of house-holds benefiting from at least one form of NFI. The most dominant forms were business income and wage labor constituting 79% and 23% of household participation respectively. Few households about 9% depended on remittances and only 4% were salaried employees. The distressful conditions ‘pushed’ most of the poor households into NFI. Poor households had so many subsistence needs, hence it was very difficult for them to accumulate. However, the drive to accumulate motivated the ‘better off’ households to enter NFI. The poor households who had some forms of NFI were able to smoothen consumption needs. The poorest of the poor who needed NFI most faced so-cial and financial exclusion based on age, health and economic status. Local councils can enhance NFI by improving physical assets through in-frastructural development. Adopting the sustainable Livelihood framework as a planning tool may also help to cultivate synergies among various actors. The poorest of the poor households would need consistent external support to be lifted out of poverty and break the cycle of intergenerational poverty.