OAR@ICRISATHouseholds and food security: lessons from food secure households in East AfricaSSilvestriauthorDSabineauthorKPattiauthorFWiebkeauthorRMarenauthorMIanettaauthorQ FCarlosauthorHMarioauthorNAnthonyauthorNNicolasauthorMJoashauthorCLievenauthorR MCristinaauthorBackground 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.Food and NutritionAgriculture-Farming, Production, Technology, Economics2015-12-04BioMed Central LtdArticle

For work being deposited by its own author: In self-archiving this collection of files and associated bibliographic metadata, I grant OAR@ICRISAT the right to store them and to make them permanently available publicly for free on-line. I declare that this material is my own intellectual property and I understand that OAR@ICRISAT does not assume any responsibility if there is any breach of copyright in distributing these files or metadata. (All authors are urged to prominently assert their copyright on the title page of their work.)

For work being deposited by someone other than its author: I hereby declare that the collection of files and associated bibliographic metadata that I am archiving at OAR@ICRISAT) is in the public domain. If this is not the case, I accept full responsibility for any breach of copyright that distributing these files or metadata may entail.

Clicking on the deposit button indicates your agreement to these terms.