Building livelihood resilience: a case study of factors affecting farm households’ adoption of coping and adaptive strategies in rural Nigeria

Recent research on social and ecological resilience has recognised the importance of identifying opportunities in adversities, providing a wealth of theoretical knowledge; but empirical evidence remains a major gap not only for sustainability debates but also for focusing development objectives. The aim of this paper is to identify aspect of rural livelihoods that assists in sustaining households’ coping and adaptive capacities during a crisis, thus attempting to diagnose which element of a livelihood has potential for maximising livelihood resilience and minimising vulnerabilities. This paper takes an example of how a society reorganises under a process of novel change by examining households’ coping and risk management strategies in response to shock and stress created by avian influenza (H5N1) outbreaks in rural Nigeria. Using a multivariate probit model accounting for complementarities and substitution effects, the paper shows the significance of social capital, market access, communal insurance and ex ante biosecurity investment in influencing responses and in strengthening coping capacities; and argues that these elements may also have potential for maintaining livelihood resilience in the rural area.