Factors Influencing Household Food Security in West Africa: The Case of Southern Niger
1
College of Economics and Management, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan 430070, China
2
College of Agriculture, California State University, Chico, CA 95973, USA
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
†
These authors contributed equally to this work.
Sustainability 2014, 6(3), 1191-1202; https://doi.org/10.3390/su6031191
Received: 10 January 2014 / Revised: 31 January 2014 / Accepted: 11 February 2014 / Published: 5 March 2014
Food insecurity is a major challenge for Niger and for many African countries. The purpose of this study is to investigate the factors affecting household food security in Niger. Based on survey data covering 500 households, drought, high food prices, poverty, soil infertility, disease and insect attacks are reported by the respondents to be the main causes of food insecurity. The empirical results from logistic regression revealed that the gender of the head of household, diseases and pests, labor supply, flooding, poverty, access to market, the distance away from the main road and food aid are significant factors influencing the odds ratio of a household having enough daily rations. Another important finding is that female headed households are more vulnerable to food insecurity compared to male headed households. The findings of this study provide evidence that food insecurity continues to affect the Nigerien population.
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Keywords:
food security; household; coping strategies; causes of vulnerability; Niger
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License
MDPI and ACS Style
Zakari, S.; Ying, L.; Song, B. Factors Influencing Household Food Security in West Africa: The Case of Southern Niger. Sustainability 2014, 6, 1191-1202. https://doi.org/10.3390/su6031191
AMA Style
Zakari S, Ying L, Song B. Factors Influencing Household Food Security in West Africa: The Case of Southern Niger. Sustainability. 2014; 6(3):1191-1202. https://doi.org/10.3390/su6031191
Chicago/Turabian StyleZakari, Seydou; Ying, Liu; Song, Baohui. 2014. "Factors Influencing Household Food Security in West Africa: The Case of Southern Niger" Sustainability 6, no. 3: 1191-1202. https://doi.org/10.3390/su6031191
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