Assets and livelihood strategies of agricultural households on the East India Plateau

• Assessed livelihood assets and strategies for 1,001 households on East India Plateau. • Our formative assessment supplements participatory action research. • Contextualising livelihood assets and strategies can assist with scaling out. The effective scaling out of livelihood improvement activities is crucial for agricultural development, yet achieving sustainable change at scale remains elusive in low-income countries. The objective of our study was to analyse the livelihoods of 1,001 agricultural households in three rural districts on the East India Plateau to inform the scaling out of livelihood strategies developed during previous participatory action research. Our descriptive analysis of cross-sectional data from a primary household survey in the year 2012–2013 examined the heterogeneity in livelihood assets (natural, human, social, physical, and financial capital) and household activities. We focused on two projects. In the same rural districts, the first project included a participatory action research process, and the second project collected data on agricultural household livelihoods. We showed large inter- and intra-district heterogeneity in assets, livelihood strategies, and women’s empowerment. Our study suggests that households with different assets tend to pursue different livelihood activities, such as intensifying and diversifying crop production using land and water resources documented in earlier participatory action research. These insights could inform the scaling out of livelihood improvement strategies that support stepping up. While stepping up offered potential pathways to improvements in livelihoods, these strategies had trade-offs, including increased exposure to weather variability. Our findings suggest that formative assessments of assets and livelihoods can help tailor participatory action research to specific communities.