Household coping strategies with vulnerability to food insecurity in rural areas of Maswa district, Tanzania
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Date
2012
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
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Publisher
Sokoine University of Agriculture
Abstract
A study aimed at investigating the strategies used by households to cope with food
insecurity was carried out in Maswa District, Shinyanga Region. Specifically the study
sought: (1) To measure the degree of food insecurity in households in the study area; (2)
To identify the coping strategies employed by households; and (3) To determine
household characteristics associated with various food insecurity coping strategies. The
study adopted a cross-sectional research design where a questionnaire was applied to
collect data from a sample size of 126 households while a checklist was used to
interview nine (9) key informants in three randomly selected wards. Quantitative data
were analyzed by using the Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) computer
software and qualitative data were summarized and analyzed using non-statistical
methods. Chi-square was used to test relationship between food insecurity situation and
household characteristics as well as association between coping strategies and household
characteristics. Findings from this study showed that food insecurity in the study area is
still a problem (>30% of households are food insecure). It was also found that residence
of respondent, sex, household size, level of income and size of land owneu have
influence on food insecurity situation. The most common coping strategies used by
households included casual labour, getting support from government/NGOs, changing
diets, skipping and eating fewer meals. It was also observed that sex; household size, age
dependency ratio, education level, size of land owned and income earned were
significantly associated with getting support from government/NGOs, changing diets,
skipping and eating fewer meals as food insecurity coping strategies when fac-. 1 with
food shortages. This finding implies that household characteristics have great influence
on choosing food coping strategies in the study area.
Description
Master of Arts Dissertation in Rural
Development
Keywords
Household coping strategies, Food insecurity, Maswa District, Tanzania