Abstract:
The purpose of this study was to investigate the contribution of Special Program for
Food Security (SPFS) introduced by Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO)
from 1996 and launched in Tanzania 1998. SPFS aimed at increasing food security
at household level through agriculture modernization. However, the contribution of
the programme on household food security was not determined in recent years.
Hence this study sought to; analyze community perception and attitude towards the
program relevance to food security, the extent of farmer’s participation in SPFS and
to assess household food security status before and after SPFS. Questionnaires with
close and open ended questions were administered to 120 respondents selected
randomly from three villages namely Chanzulu, Kilangali and Msolwa. A cross-
sectional research design was adopted while purposive sampling technique was used
to select the region and the districts. Simple random sampling procedure was used to
select wards, villages and heads of households. The quantitative data were analyzed
using the SPSS computer software while qualitative analysis was analyzed by
functional content analysis. The study found changes in food security before and
after the program which attributed to the project and other factor like house hold
size. Also it found positive attitude and perception towards challenges identified
include; increasing of rice yield before and after the programme at significant level
at 0.05 and number of months with food shortage has been reduced from 4 months
to 2 months.
