Determinant of household dietary diversity in rural and urban Tanzania: does household income matter the most?
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Date
2021
Authors
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Journal ISSN
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Publisher
Sokoine University of Agriculture
Abstract
Recently, food security particularly in terms of nutrients availability has been topical
reflected in food intake diversity. Thus, the study to analyze the determinant of household
dietary diversity and analyze dietary diversity for rural and urban households in Tanzania
was conducted. Specifically, the study intended to: compare the dietary diversity for rural,
urban households and agro-ecological zones in Tanzania and lastly to determine the effect
of income and other factors on dietary diversity in Tanzania. Using Panel data wave four,
for 2014-2015 from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), the study adopted
Descriptive Statistics, Food Consumption Score, Coping Strategy Index and Ordered
Logit regression to accomplish the objectives. The dietary diversity was found to be more
in rural areas than in urban area. Moreover, dietary diversity seems to be more dominant
in Eastern and Lake Zone than the rest of the agro-ecological zones in Tanzania. Food
Consumption Score suggest that, majority of Tanzanians belong to acceptance profile
followed by borderline and poor profile, implying a high level of dietary diversity in
Tanzania. The most consumed food was found to be cereals followed by vegetables,
pulses, oil and sugar/sugar products. The results suggest that, household income,
household size, cultivated plot and education were found to be significant and positively
affecting dietary diversity while time spent on firewood and fetching water, livestock
ownership and fishing activities were found to be significant but with negative effect in
dietary diversity. Intake of less preferred food, reduce number of meals taken per day
were the main coping strategies adopted by households. It is therefore recommended that,
education should be provided, encourage household to participation in different economic
activities in order to generate more income, ensuring availability of social services such as
water and agricultural diversification will help to improve household dietary diversity.
Description
Dissertation
Keywords
Determinant household, Rural diversity, Urban diversity, Household, Tanzania