CHAPTER 4. Resource Base of the Project Beneficiaries

Housing
Occupations
Savings and access to Credit
Membership of Rural Organizations

Housing

In this research four indicators are used to determine the housing situation of the group members: the type of housing material, major improvements made to the house during the past three years, number of rooms in the house, and the availability of a toilet.

The Census of Population and Housing of 1981, makes a division in three types of houses, based on the material of the house: permanent, semi-permanent, and improvised houses. Permanent houses are defined as having a tiled, asbestos or metal sheeted roof; cement, stone or brick walls; and a cement or wooden floor. Semi-permanent houses are all houses that have one or more semi-permanent material in the roof, walls, and/or floor, e.g., cadjan at the roof, and/or mud or wood in the walls, and/or wood or mud at the floor. Improvised houses are defined as houses that have cadjan walls with the roof and the floor of any material⁴.

⁴The Census also includes wooden planks or palmyrah housing material. But because none of the houses of the respondents bad such material, for simplification, it has been left out in the definition.

This table clearly indicates that the housing situation of the group members in the research area is much below the national average in 1981. It also reveals that the housing situation of group members in Rattota is much better than in Naula or Dambulla, and that there is also a considerable difference between the Naula and Dambulla areas.

However, the data of a survey held by the project, among 150 group members, in three village clusters; two clusters in Naula and one in Dambulla in 1986, reveals that 90% of the houses qualify for improvised (Amarasiri de Silva, 1986:24), whereas this survey indicates that for Naula and Dambulla only, 81% is improvised. When one looks at the state of the roofs, about 75% of the houses had thatched roofs in 1986 (id.:23) and about 49% had such roofs in 1990. See Table 8. in the Annex. This decrease may be partly attributed to improvements made to houses. This survey suggests that nearly 50% of the respondents made major improvements to their houses during the past three years. However, this relation does not appear very significant because among the improvements made, new roofing did not have great priority compared to making extra rooms, building entirely new houses and renovating walls. See Tables 9. and 10. in the Annex. Again, in Rattota, more major improvements to the house have been made (62%) than in Naula and Dambulla (each 43%).

Table 4. Housing Situation per division and for the rural sector in Sri Lanka

Division	Naula		Dambulla		Rattota		Total*		Rural Sector Sri Lanka (1981)**
	no	%	no	%	no	%	no	%	%
Housing situation
Permanent	4	7.6	4	6.9	4	19.1	12	9.1	25.7
Semi-permanent	12	22.6	1	1.7	12	57.1	25	18.9	72.1
Improvised	37	69.8	53	91.4	5	23.8	95	72.0	2.2
total	53	100.0	58	100.0	21	100.0	132	100.0	100.0

n = all respondents
* Source: Resource-base Survey 1990
** Source: Census of Population and Housing of 1981 (Table 8)

Another indicator for housing is the number of rooms in the house. According to this survey, the average number of rooms, excluding the kitchen, for all respondents is 3.5, with 3.6 rooms for Naula, 3.2 for Dambulla and 4.2 for Rattota. See Table 11. in the Annex. However, the average number of rooms for the rural sector in Sri Lanka in 1981 was only 2.7. (Sri Lanka Census of Population and housing, 1981:178).

The difference in the number of rooms per division cannot be attributed to the size of the household, which is about the same for all divisions: i.e., an average of 5.1. in Naula, 5.3 in Dambulla, and 5.1. in Rattota, with a total average of 5.2. (See Table 8 in the Annex.)

Furthermore, a fourth indicator used is the status of household toilet facilities. All group member households in Rattota possessed a toilet and a minor percentage in Naula and Dambulla do not have a toilet (13% and 17% respectively). However, in Rattota nearly all respondents have a permanent toilet (95%), whereas in Naula and Dambulla, the permanent and temporary toilets have about an equal distribution (around 40%). (See Table 12 in the Annex.) In the Baseline Survey of 1986, 22% of the group members (all from Naula or Dambulla) did not have a toilet, compared to 26.9% for the rural sector in Matale District in 1981 (Sri Lanka Census for Population and Housing, Matale District Report, 1981:203). Due to the timelag between the Census (1981) and this survey (1990), the difference between the averages is most possibly reduced at present. However, it can be assumed that the number of group members possessing a toilet is certainly not below the average of rural Matale District.

On the whole, the housing situation in Rattota is better than in Naula and Dambulla, whereas Naula has slightly better housing than Dambulla. Compared to the 1986 data, the housing situation for Naula and Dambulla has improved (Rattota was not included in the 1986 baseline survey). Comparison with the Census data has led to a contradiction in the type of housing material used, when compared to the number of rooms in the house and the status of the toilet. The question remains whether the difference in housing between the divisions can indeed be attributed to a difference in resource base.

Occupations

The majority of the group members, about 70%, is engaged in cultivation. Comparison division wise shows that the highest percentage of group members involved in cultivation is in Dambulla, 89.7%, followed by 71.7% in Naula and only 42.9% in Rattota. (See Table 13 in the Annex.) However, a larger part of the group members in Rattota are involved in animal husbandry, 52.4%, compared to 37.7% in Naula and 25.9% in Dambulla. (See Table 14 in the Annex.)

Apart from the larger involvement of group members in Rattota in animal husbandry, the limited involvement in cultivation is not compensated by more involvement in other occupations when compared to the other divisions. Tables 15., 16., and 17. in the Annex show the limited involvement of the group members in fishing, collecting wild honey, and beekeeping. About 23% of all group members are involved in making handicrafts or other products, with a remarkably even distribution among the Divisions. This is shown in Table 18. in the Annex. Group members who did not cultivate during the 1989-90 maha season and/or the 1989 yala season were not more involved in making handicrafts or other products than the group members who were involved in cultivation. Furthermore, Rattota group members do not have temporary or permanent employment (except for two members) and are significantly less involved in daily wage labour. This is visualized in Table 5. For the purpose of this research, employment has been defined as being employed by somebody else.

The data thus clearly indicate that a substantial part of the group members in Rattota Division does not have any occupation. It can be assumed that this is due to the relatively scarcity of agricultural resources in Rattota Division, when compared to Naula and Dambulla Divisions, and to a relatively high percentage of female group members with a relatively higher level of education in Rattota Division.

Table 5. Employment of Group Members by Division

Division	Naula		Dambulla		Rattota		Total
	No.	%	No.	%	No.	%	No.	%
Type of Employment
Group Member is Permanently Employed	3	5.7	0	0.0	1	4.8	4	3.0
Group Member is Temporary Employed	5	9.4	2	3.5	1	4.8	8	6.1
Group Member is Daily Wage Labourer	24	45.3	30	51.7	5	23.8	59	44.7

n = all respondents
Source: Resource-Base Survey, 1990

Table 6 indicates that women are slightly more involved in home gardening, whereas more men are involved in cultivation in the field. For the purpose of the research, a home garden has been defined as the cultivable area around or near the house of not more than one quarter of an acre. Should the cultivated area around or near the house exceed one quarter of an acre, it has been defined as partly home garden and partly dry land and/or irrigated land⁵. Given its importance for group members, the resource-base related to cultivation will be further elaborated in the next chapter.

⁵According to the Department of Census and Statistics (1984:3): "A piece of land which has a dwelling house and having some form of cultivation can be considered a homegarden if the total area of that piece of land is twenty or less than twenty perches.". If the total area is more than twenty perches (i.e., 1/8 acre), it can also be considered a homegarden if it has a dwelling house and if the crops on that land are largerly cultivated for home consumption. However, for the census emunerators it will be difficult to determine in which cases the crops are "largely" cultivated for home consumption and in which cases not.

Table 6. Involvement of Group Members in Cultivation by Gender

Gender	Female		Male		Total *
	No.	%	No.	%	No.	%
Group Members Involved in:
Home gardening	52	70.3	39	67.4	91	68.9
Maha 1989-90 Cultivation	45	60.8	54	93.1	99	75.0
Yala 1989 Cultivation	46	62.2	51	87.9	97	73.5

n = all respondents
* There is no incidence of non response in the data compiled for this table.
Source: Resource-Base Survey 1990

Collecting wild honey in the jungle is a male occupation and 24.1 % of the male members Stated that they would collect wild honey during the year. On the other hand beekeeping tends to be more often, however on a limited scale, done by the female members (5.4%) than by male members (3.5%). The number of beehives is small, with a maximum of two. Two members use standard wooden hives and others use pots or wooden logs for beekeeping. Given the fairly large number of members collecting wild honey in the jungle, especially in the dry zone, there should be a scope to increase beekeeping in the project area.

Male and female members are about equally involved in making handicrafts and other products, 20.1% and 25.9% respectively. Table 19. in the Annex features the variety of handicrafts and products that are made by males and females. None of the women make products on the basis of sub-contracting and four male members (5.4%) stated that they made products, i.e., carpentry work, houses, roofs or brick, on the basis of sub-contracting.

Table 7. Type of Employment⁶ of Group Members by Gender

⁶For the purpose of the research a distiction is made between employment and occupation. Employment is defined as being employed by somebody else, whether permanent, temporary or daily, and occupation includes both employment and any self-employment activity. Thus cultivation is most often an occupation, whereas agricultural labour is employment.

Gender	Female		Male		Total
	No.	%	No.	%	No.	%
Member is not employed	43	58.1	19	32.8	62	47.0
Member has permanent employment only	1	1.4	2	3.5	3	2.3
Member has temporary employment only	1	1.4	6	10.3	7	5.3
Member is daily wage labourer only	27	36.5	30	51.7	57	43.2
Member has permanent and temporary employment	0	00.0	0	00.0	0	00.0
Member has permanent employment and is daily wage labourer	0	00.0	1	1.7	1	0.8
Member has temporary employment and is daily wage labourer	1	1.4	0	0.0	1	0.8
No response	1	1.4	0	0.0	1	0.8
Total	74	100.2	58	100.0	132	100.2

n = all respondents
Source: Resource-Base Survey 1990.

None of the male group members who were not involved in maha 1989-90 cultivation were working as daily wage labourer; most of them stated that they were not employed by somebody else. Yet, a substantial number of female members who did not cultivate during the 1989-90 maha season had sought employment as daily wage labourer; i.e., 24.1% of all female members who were not involved in maha 1989-90 cultivation, compared to 36.5% of all female members. Accordingly, about 10% of all female members did not cultivate themselves but worked as daily wage labourer instead, -and would probably qualify for landless agricultural labourer-, whereas none of the male members were in this position.

Nearly all daily wage labour concerns cultivation. See Table 20. in the Annex. The frequency of going out in search of work depends on the season, the need for income, and for women often on the possibility to leave the children alone at home. The relation between agricultural wage labour and the agricultural resource-base is analyzed in the next chapter.

Savings and access to Credit

A larger number of male group members maintain one or more savings accounts in a bank or a registered savings and credit group; 75.9% of the males versus 48.7% of the females. However, the women are more serious savers once they have opened an account: 27.3% of the total number of accounts maintained by women contains more than Rs500/ =, whereas this figure is 19.4% for the men. (See Tables 21 and 22 in the Annex.) For the females 27.3% of the accounts contain only a marginal sum (1-99 Rs) and for males this is the case in 45% of the accounts.

Despite the difference in the number of accounts between the females and males, the group members, in general, have considerable access to institutional savings facilities and show the capacity to generate savings. About 41% of all female group members maintain a savings account of over Rs 100 in a bank (including 17% with an amount of over Rs500) and about 57% of all male group members (including 21% with an amount of over Rs500). (See Table 23. in the Annex.) In addition, the section on group activities in Chapter 6 will reveal that female members appear to be active in informal group savings and credit activities.

Twice as many men received a bank loan in 1989 as women: 44.8% versus 23.0%. In addition, of the male loan recipients, 17.2% received two loans during 1989, whereas only 2.7% of the females received two loans and the loan amount is higher for males than for females. See Tables 24., 25. and 26. in the Annex.

According to the respondents, a large part of the institutional loans were obtained with the assistance of the project, this was the case for 82.3% of the female members and 69.4% of the male members. See Table 27. in the Annex. In sum, 24.2% of all group members obtained a loan in 1989 with the assistance of the project, including 18.9% of the female members and 31.0% of the male members. Most of the members stated that they used the loan for agricultural purposes. However, this being the formal reason for most of the loan requests, it cannot be reliably said here for which purposes the loans were actually used.

Many group members received one or more non-institutional loans during 1989: i.e., 48.7% of the female members and 60.3% of the male members. (See Tables 28 and 29 in the Annex.) Tables 8.1 through 8.3 show the amounts and sources of institutional loans taken by group members by gender.

Table 8.1 Non-Institutional Loans by Source and Amount for Female Members

n=36

Amount (Rs)	1 - 99		100 - 999		1000+		No Resp.		Total
	no.	%	no.	%	no.	%	no.	%	no.	%
Source:
Sanase	0	0.0	0	0.0	0	0.0	0	0.0	0	0.0
Seettu	1	3.6	5	6.1	0	0.0	0	0.0	6	4.6
Group	12	42.9	35	42.7	2	9.5	0	0.0	49	37.4
Village Board	4	14.3	3	3.7	0	0.0	0	0.0	7	5.4
Family Member	2	7.1	0	0.0	3	14.3	0	0.0	5	3.8
Trader	0	0.0	3	3.7	10	47.6	0	0.0	13	9.9
Person from Village	5	17.9	30	36.6	6	28.6	0	0.0	41	31.3
Pawn Broker	4	14.3	6	7.3	0	0.0	0	0.0	10	7.6
Death Donation Society	0	0.0	0	0.0	0	0.0	0	0.0	0	0.0
Total	28	100.0	82	100.0	21	100.0	0	0.0	131	100.0

n = all female group members who received one or more institutional loans during 1989.
Multiple Response
Source: Resource-Base Survey, 1990.

n=35

Amount (Rs)	1 - 99		100 - 999		1000+		No Resp.		Total
	no.	%	no.	%	no.	%	no.	%	no.	%
Source:
Sanase	0	0.0	2	2.9	0	0.0	0	0.0	2	1.7
Seettu	1	4.0	1	1.5	0	0.0	0	0.0	2	1.7
Group	8	32.0	15	21.7	3	18.8	0	0.0	26	23.0
Village Board	0	0.0	1	1.5	0	0.0	0	0.0	1	0.9
Family Member	7	28.0	12	17.4	2	12.5	3	100.0	24	21.3
Trader	2	8.0	24	34.8	7	43.8	0	0.0	33	29.2
Person from Village	7	28.0	12	17.4	3	18.8	0	0.0	22	19.5
Pawn Broker	0	0.0	0	0.0	0	0.0	0	0.0	0	0.0
Death Donation Society	0	0.0	2	2.9	1	6.3	0	0.0	3	2.7
Total	25	100.0	69	100.0	16	100.0	3	0.0	113	100.0

n = all male group members who received one or more institutional loans during 1989. Multiple Response.
Source: Resource-Base Survey, 1990.

n=71

Amount (Rs)	1 - 99		100 - 999		1000+		No Resp.		Total
	no.	%	no.	%	no.	%	no.	%	no.	%
Source:
Sanase	0	0.0	2	1.3	0	0.0	0	0.0	2	0.8
Seettu	2	3.8	6	4.0	0	0.0	0	0.0	8	3.2
Group	20	37.7	50	33.1	5	13.5	0	0.0	75	30.8
Village Board	4	7.6	4	7.6	0	0.0	0	0.0	8	3.2
Family Member	9	17.0	12	8.0	5	13.5	3	100.0	29	11.9
Trader	2	3.8	27	17.9	17	46.0	0	0.0	46	18.9
Person from Village	12	22.6	42	27.8	9	24.3	0	0.0	63	25.8
Pawn Broker	4	7.6	6	4.0	0	0.0	0	0.0	10	4.1
Death Donation Society	0	0.0	2	1.3	1	2.7	0	0.0	3	1.2
Total	53	100.0	151	100.0	37	100.0	3	100.0	244	100.0

n = all group members who received one or more institutional loans during 1989. Multiple Response.
Source: Resource-Base Survey, 1990.

It is clear that both female and male members often receive large loans (Rs1000 and above), from traders. In return for this loan, cultivators often have to sell their harvest for a fixed price to the trader. This would suggest that female members are equally involved in this type of arrangements than male members. This seems logical from the point of view that women prefer a relatively easy method of selling their cashcrops and perhaps also of obtaining their inputs.

The Small Farmer Group plays a very important role in informal credit supply; for female members it is the most important source for loans between Rs1 and Rs999. The relation between the group fund and informal loans supply will be further discussed in the next chapter. The Village Board fund is obviously in a number of cases also used for loan supply to mainly female members. Although this might be a way to obtain returns on idle cash, this practice can dilute the principle that the Village Board is a group of groups and not a group of individuals.

Membership of Rural Organizations

As mentioned earlier in Chapter 2, in the rural society of Sri Lanka, there are many different voluntary organizations, both non-governmental and governmental, which serve various different interests. Membership of a society, may, in addition to social functions and community welfare functions, mean more access to resources. In some cases this concerns locally generated resources, such as with thrift and credit groups, funeral societies and mutual help groups. In other cases it concerns national or government resources, for members of for example, Rural Development Societies, Mahila Kantha Samithi, Youth Clubs, Gramodaya Mandalaya, Cooperative Societies and Fisheries Societies. Other societies mainly serve a community welfare purpose, such as the Temple Development Society, the Sports Club and the School Development Society.

About half of the group members is member of one or more local-level societies apart from the small farmer group, but a higher percentage of male members have joined societies (81.0%) than female members (31.0%). (See Table 30 in the Annex). Also, more male members joined two or more societies (41.4%) than female members (9.5%). (See Tables 30 and 31 in the Annex.) Table 9 shows the kind of societies the group members have joined, in addition to a small farmer group.

Analysis of the actual functioning of these societies and the benefits the group members derive from them is beyond the scope of this paper. Yet, this table shows a few things. The funeral or death donation society is by far the most important society among group members.

This society is a fully autonomous village level society, that functions without any financial support from the government. It shows the capacity of members, predominantly male, to organize themselves once the purpose of the society is very clear and represents an important interest to all.

Furthermore, nearly 30% of male group members are also members of a Sanase (or Thrift and Credit Cooperative) Society. This society, which is linked-up with branches at divisional, district and national levels, plays an important role in rural credit supply. Part of the financial resources for credit supply are generated by the members themselves and part is loaned by its Federation at national level to the societies, through the district and divisional branches, on a refinancement basis.

Table 9. Membership in Societies apart from the Small Farmer Group by Gender

Gender	Female n = 23		Male n = 47		Total n = 70
	No.	%*	No.	%*	No.	%*
Names Rural Societies
Sanase (Thrift and Credit Soc.)	4	5.4	16	29.6	20	15.2
Funeral Society	7	9.5	31	57.4	38	28.8
Temple Development Society	1	1.4	2	3.7	3	2.3
Rural Development Society	1	1.4	10	18.5	11	8.3
Mahila Kantha Samithi (Women Soc.)	5	6.8	1	1.9	6	4.5
Youth Club	6	8.1	9	16.7	15	11.4
Gramodaya Mandalaya (Village Awakening Society)	0	0.0	1	1.9	1	0.8
Cooperative Society	2	2.7	0	0.0	2	1.5
Sarvodaya Shramadana Society	2	2.7	0	0.0	2	1.5
Redd Barna (Norwegian Save the Children Fund) Society	0	0.0	1	1.9	1	0.8
Young Farmer's Club	0	0.0	3	5.6	3	2.3
School Development Society	0	0.0	4	7.4	4	3.0
Sports Club	0	0.0	4	7.4	4	3.0
Other (second) Small Farmer Group	1	1.4	1	1.9	2	1.5
Fisheries Society	0	0.0	2	3.7	2	1.5
Public Health Workers Union	0	0.0	1	1.9	1	0.8
Mutual Help Group	1	1.4	0	0.0	1	0.8
No response	1	1.4	0	0.0	1	0.8

* as percentage of all respondents by gender.
Multiple response
Source: Resource-Base Survey, 1990.

It would be interesting to find out why relatively few women have joined a Sanase society, whereas they have shown considerable capacity to generate savings. For example, a number of female members maintained a savings account with the Rural Bank (31.8% of all savings accounts of female members are with the Rural Bank, compared to only 6.5% of all savings accounts of male group members), but none of them received a loan from this bank during 1989. (See Tables 23.1 and 26.1 in the Annex).

Before conclusions can be drawn about the resource-base of the group members in general, we will, at last, have a look into probably the most important resources: those pertaining to cultivation.