Living Standards Measurements Study - Serbia 2002 - 2007

Box 4. Types of Individual Agricultural Households
According to activities performed by their members, agricultural households are classified into
following groups:
Agricultural farms are those farms where the overall income is from individual farmers on the farm.
Non-agricultural farms are those farms where income is from a member/members of the farm
performing non-agricultural activities or performing off-farm activities or from pensions, other assets,
social allowances or other types of fixed income.
"Part-time" farms are those generating at the same time income from for agricultural and nonagricultural
farms.
Farms generating no income are those farms with unknown source of income or income stemming
from a party providing financial support - non member of the household (including legal entities).
Republic Statistical Office: Census 2002
Table 10.1. Poverty indicators by settlement type
Population structure Poverty percentage Poverty structure
2002 2007 2002 2007 2002 2007
Urban 56.4 58.5 11.2 4.3 45.0 38.6
Rural 43.6 41.5 17.7 9.8 55.0 61.4
Index rural/urban 1.6 2.3
Table 10.2. Total number of households by types of settlement and farm ownership
Total number of
households
Rural households
Total
With farms
Percent of rural
households in total
number of
households
Percent of
households
with farms
in the total
number of
rural
households
LSMS 2007
percent of rural
households in
total number of
households
SERBIA 2 521 190 1 039 886 633 939 41.25 60.96 40.0
Central Serbia 1 243 908 648 334 455 439 52.12 70.25 51.2
Vojvodina 709 957 298 582 143 056 42.06 47.91 41.2
Urban area Belgrade 567 325 92 970 35 444 16.39 38.12 15.3
Source: Census 2002, LSMS 2007
1. The high proportion of agricultural
households in the total number of rural households
indicates high relevancy of agriculture in rural
social and economic structure. According to results
of the 2002 Census, there were about 1.04 million
households in rural areas in Serbia, which is 41.24
percent of the total number of households in Serbia.
According to the 2002 Census 61 percent of rural
households have agricultural farms. Results of
LSMS 2007 indicate that this share has slightly
dropped in the past five-year period (59 percent) but
Agriculture
still most households in Serbia own farms.
However, the possession of farms, per se, does not
imply that the household has income from
agriculture (this is particularly true for elderly
households, households with small farms, urban
households, etc.). But ownership of a farm, use of
even a small farm or just living on a farm represents
a way to reduce households' costs of living.
The share of rural households in Vojvodina is
slightly higher compared to other parts of Serbia,
but the percentage of rural households with farms is
137