Silvestri, S and Sabine, D and Patti, K and Wiebke, F and Maren, R and Ianetta, M and Carlos, Q F and Mario, H and Anthony, N and Nicolas, N and Joash, M and Lieven, C and Cristina, R M (2015) Households and food security: lessons from food secure households in East Africa. Agriculture & Food Security, 4 (23). 01-15. ISSN 2048-7010
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Abstract
Background What are the key factors that contribute to household-level food security? What lessons can we learn from food secure households? What agricultural options and management strategies are likely to benefit female-headed households in particular? This paper addresses these questions using a unique dataset of 600 households that allows us to explore a wide range of indicators capturing different aspects of performance and well-being for different types of households—female-headed, male-headed, food secure, food insecure—and assess livelihoods options and strategies and how they influence food security. The analysis is based on a detailed farm household survey carried out in three sites in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania. Results Our results suggest that food insecurity may not be more severe for female-headed households than male-headed households. We found that food secure farming households have a wider variety of crops on their farms and are more market oriented than are the food insecure. More domestic assets do not make female-headed households more food secure. For the other categories of assets (livestock, transport, and productive), we did not find evidence of a correlation with food security. Different livelihood portfolios are being pursued by male versus female-headed households, with female-headed households less likely to grow high-value crops and more likely to have a less diversified crop portfolio. Conclusions These findings help identify local, national and regional policies and actions for enhancing food security of female-headed as well as male-headed households. These include interventions that improve households’ access to information, e.g., though innovative communication and knowledge-sharing efforts and support aimed at enhancing women’s and men’s agricultural market opportunities.
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Divisions: | RP-Resilient Dryland Systems |
| CRP: | CGIAR Research Program on Dryland Systems |
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | Livelihoods strategies, Food security, Income diversification, Female-headed households, East Africa, Households, Food Secure Households |
| Subjects: | Others > Food and Nutrition Others > Agriculture-Farming, Production, Technology, Economics |
| Depositing User: | Mr Ramesh K |
| Date Deposited: | 08 Feb 2016 10:43 |
| Last Modified: | 19 Aug 2016 04:03 |
| URI: | http://oar.icrisat.org/id/eprint/9310 |
| Official URL: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s40066-015-0042-4 |
| Projects: | UNSPECIFIED |
| Funders: | UNSPECIFIED |
| Acknowledgement: | We would like to acknowledge the field teams, householders and villagers, community leaders, and other CCAFS partners who helped with this collaborative research effort in the various sites. We would like to especially thank the CCAFS Regional Programme team for their support. We would like to thank in particular: Solomon Desta, Jusper Kiplimo, George Sayula, and Ibrahim Wanyama. We would also like to thank for their review of the statistics: Elinor Jones and Sam Dumble from the University of Reading. CCAFS is funded by the CGIAR Fund, AusAid, Danish International Development Agency, Environment Canada, Instituto de Investigação Científica Tropical, Irish Aid, Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, UK Aid, and the European Union, with technical support from the International Fund for Agricultural Development. |
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