Diversification in agriculture

Diversification in agricultural practice means building up new business activity that is not directly related to agricultural production but that utilises the resources of a typical farm. For an individual farm, the development of another source of income is often taken into consideration when expansion opportunities in agricultural production itself do not exist but when adequate family labour is available. Diversification is a key feature of structural change in agriculture that has not been adequately captured in the statistics, in contrast to the development of farm size or the termination of farming operations. The article provides an overview of farm diversification.