Farm-level diversification involves adding income-generating activities at the farm household level, including livestock, local non-farm and off-farm pursuits undertaken by farm people. The objective of this paper is to consider questions arising from an apparent inconsistency. In this respect, policy makers seem to consider farm diversification a major 'economic' issue, thus as an objective, while economists typically neglect it, seeing farm diversification as an outcome from pursuing another objective. This lack of a consensus is further reflected by disagreement over the extent to which national policies should proactively seek to promote diversification of the farm-level output mix in specific directions.