Multidimensional Poverty Across Agroecology in Occidental Mindoro, Philippines

Poverty in the context of rural farming is site-specific. The differences in natural resource endowment and availability of social services across Agroecology shape farming households' well-being. In the Philippines, there is a scant supply of comparative studies on the multidimensional poverty situation across different farming systems. This study aimed to close this knowledge gap by assessing the multidimensional poverty and its determinants across upland, lowland, and coastal farming areas in Occidental Mindoro, Philippines. Using the Alkire-Foster methodology, data from 210 randomly selected farming households revealed that five of seven households are multidimensionally poor. The coastal area registered the highest Multidimensional Poverty Index at 0.41, where most households are deprived of education, decent housing, clean fuel source, paved access road, and farmland. Also, the analysis exposed the poverty dominance of indigenous farming households over non-indigenous migrant households. For all the Agroecology, the households' lack of education and incapacity to take on economic opportunities and secure productive assets limits them from investing in things that improve their living conditions. Estimates of binary logistic regression showed that non-indigenous farming households with female and educated householders, fewer dependents, larger agricultural holdings, access to formal credits, and non-farm business are significantly less likely to fall into poverty. The local government and concerned development organizations may consider investing in social protection programs that improve access to formal education, spur on-farm and non-farm livelihood opportunities, and enhance public infrastructure services to reduce multidimensional poverty in Occidental Mindoro.