Search Results (3)

Commercialization has been increasingly promoted for (agro) pastoral communities as an intervention to improve incomes and food access. Using households from rural Afar, this study examines the food security effects of the livestock commercial orientations of (agro) pastoralists by employing propensity score matching (PSM) procedures. The results show that, despite the fact that the market production of (agro) pastoralists is stressed by a broad range of factors, identified as cultural, infrastructural, and production risks, participation in livestock sales significantly decreased the severity of food insecurity in both the household food insecurity access score (HFIAS), and the reduced coping strategy index (rCSI) measures. However, the results failed to find consistently significant effects via the per capita consumption expenditure measure, in which case, the ‘subsistence’ and ‘commercially’ oriented groups are alike. Yet, given the factors depressing market production, properly addressed with policy measures, the income generated from livestock sales improved the welfare of (agro) pastoralists, at least by some (the HFIAS and rCSI) of the livelihood indicators. This highlights the importance of combining market infrastructure investments with culturally sensitive policy measures in order to sustain the traditional livestock husbandry of (agro) pastoralists. Therefore, in order to sustainably improve the food security situations in (agro) pastoral areas, the promotion of market production through the broadening of market access for both sales and purchases is important. Full article

Very little is known about seasonal hunger in South Africa, or about the food security and nutritional status of farm workers. This article identifies a pathway to seasonal hunger—through intra-annual fluctuations in agricultural employment and income—that is underanalyzed in the literature. We report on findings from a year-long data collection process, comprising baseline and endline surveys and monthly monitoring of three food security indicators, with a sample of 195 female farm workers in the Northern Cape province in South Africa. The three monthly monitoring indicators—the Household Food Insecurity Access Scale (HFIAS), Dietary Diversity Score (DDS), and Coping Strategies Index (CSI)—which measure different aspects of food insecurity, are analyzed to determine whether and to what extent food security fluctuates seasonally in our sample. HFIAS results show unambiguous evidence of seasonal food insecurity, with the highest prevalence (88 percent experiencing severe food insecurity) and severity during the low employment winter period, and lowest prevalence (49 percent) and severity during the summer harvest, which corresponds with relatively higher employment and earnings. The DDS results show evidence of highest dietary diversity during summer and the CSI results reveal the need to employ coping strategies to deal with intensified food insecurity during winter. Full article

The Guinean government has promoted the large-scale production of industrial crops such as oil palm and rubber through the Guinean Oil Palm and Rubber Company (SOGUIPAH). Smallholder-based production of these crops has also been promoted to boost rural development but the food security outcomes are unclear. This exploratory study assesses the food security outcomes of smallholder-based oil palm and rubber production at the household level using six standardized metrics of food security. We compare households involved in industrial crop production and households that only grow food crops under subsistence conditions through statistical tools such as Propensity Score Matching (PSM) and Endogenous Treatment Effect Regression (ETER). Overall, results suggest that oil palm and rubber smallholders perform better than subsistence farmers on metrics that capture perceptions of hunger and coping behaviors but perform worse for food diversity metrics. We hypothesize that this discrepancy can possibly be explained by the strong sense of security that steady income provides across time, which outweighs the shortcomings of diet diversity. The results of this exploratory study can inform the development of more detailed assessments of the food security outcomes of interventions implemented by SOGUIPAH in the area (and the mechanism through which these impacts emerge). Full article