Status of household food insecurity in Bajura district of Nepal

Keshav Shrestha

Status of household food insecurity in Bajura district of Nepal

Keshav Shrestha

Journal of Bioscience and Agriculture Research

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Abstract

Food insecurity is a condition of limited food availability owing to a lack of money and resources.The study examined the household food insecurity status along with its affecting factors in Bajura district Nepal. Purposive and simple random sampling procedure was used in selecting 120 household respondents of Budhiganga and Triveni Municipality. Data were collected during June-July 2018 with the use of interview schedule and structured and semi-structured questionnaires. The Household Food Insecurity Access Scale was used to assess the food insecurity status. The result revealed that 55% of the households were food insecure comprising 33.34%, 15% and 6.66% as mildly, moderately and severely food insecure respectively. Similarly, ordered Probit regression model was used for assessing determinants of household food insecurity using the Household Food Insecurity Access Scale as the dependent variable which showed that average annual income, amount of rice, family size, and distance to nearby market were found significantly determining the food insecurity level. The months of March, June and July were found most shortage for food grains in the study area. The identified constraints were drought, rare use of improved farm technology, low farm and off farm income and poor agriculture extension services leading to food shortage. The study recommends on agricultural policies aiming at promoting farmers access to irrigation facility, improving farm household productivity and market access as well as farmers be provided with extension services and non-farm income generating activities.

II. Materials and Methods

Study area and period: The study was carried out in Bajura district of Nepal during June-July 2018. Bajura is a mountain district in the far-western development region (now called as Sudur Paschim Pradesh) covering an area of 2,188 km². The elevation of the district varies from 300 m to 6,400 m above sea level (masl), which divides the district into three distinct regions from north to south: higher Himalayan, higher mountains and mid mountains. This results in a variation in temperature, which ranges from 0°C during winter to 40°C during summer. The annual average rainfall is 1,343 mm, which decreased at a rate of 18.25 mm/year over the period 1976-2011. In addition, the inter-annual variation of rainfall is pronounced over the same period. The combined climate change vulnerability index for Bajura is moderate; however, it is highly vulnerable for drought and moderately vulnerable for landslide. In addition, ecologically, this district is highly sensitive to climate change (Sherpa et al., 2015). The average population density is around 62 people per square km, with a family size of 5.4. The average land holding is 0.42 ha and almost 75% of the agricultural land is non-irrigated (CBS, 2013). Sample size determination and sampling procedure: Household's respondents of the study were selected through purposive and simple random sampling technique. Bajura was selected purposively as it is the most food insecure district of Nepal being a mountain district of far west with severe drought and the two municipalities; Triveni and Budhiganga were selected as Agriculture Food Security Project (Phase I) was carried out there during 2013-2018. Altogether 120 respondents were selected from these two municipalities by simple random sampling method. Data were collected with the use of interview schedule and structured and semi-structured questionnaires.

The main independent variable is a measure of household food insecurity. This variable was created using a series of questions on household food insecurity included in Nepal Demographic and Health Survey, (NDHS, 2011). The questions on food insecurity included in NDHS 2011 were adopted from the Household Food Insecurity Access Scale (HFIAS). Of the nine generic questions constituting HFIAS, seven were included in NDHS (2011), and the reference period for assessment was extended to 12 months from 1 month to allow for seasonal variations (MoHP, 2011). The questions used were as follows:

 In the past 12 months, how frequently did you worry that your household would not have enough food?  In the past 12 months, how often were you or any household member not able to eat the kinds of foods you preferred because of a lack of resources?  In the past 12 months, how often did you or any household member have to eat a limited variety of foods due to lack of resources?  In the past 12 months, how often did you or any household member have to eat a smaller meal than you felt you needed because there was not enough food?  In the past 12 months, how often did you or any household member eat fewer meals in a day because of lack of resources to get food?  In the past 12 months, how often was there no food to eat of any kind in your household because of lack of resources to get food?  In the past 12 months, how often did you or any household member go to sleep at night hungry because there was not enough food?

Each question had four response options: never, rarely, sometimes, or often. The households that reported that they "never" or "rarely" worried that their households would not have enough food were coded as "food secure." Households that reported that they worried about not having enough food (sometimes or often), and/or were unable to eat preferred foods, and/ or ate a more monotonous diet than desired, but only rarely, were coded as "mildly food insecure." Households that reported that they ate a more monotonous diet than desired sometimes or often, and/or had started to cut back on quantity by reducing the size of meals or number of meals, rarely or sometimes, were coded as "moderately food insecure." Households that reported that they often cut back on meal size or number of meals , and/or ran out of food or went to bed hungry, even as infrequently as rarely, were coded as "severely food insecure." These categories of household food insecurity are adapted from Coates et al. (2007).

Analytical method:

The household food insecurity variable has four categories: food secure (coded as 0), mildly food insecure (coded as 1), moderately food insecure (coded as 2), and severely food insecure (coded as 3).

Since the order in the four categories of food security scale matters, the model used to obtain the estimates is an ordered Probit model, Probit and ordered probit models were used by Gundersen et al. (2007) to investigate gender differences in food insecurity using data from a 2004 household-based survey of children in Zimbabwe, which can briefly be described, for each individual, as:

Where Yi * is a latent variable that can take on four values corresponding to four levels of food security in the HFIAS, Xi represents a set of socio-demographic covariates, and εi is a random error.

Statistical analyses:

The data was collected and compiled from survey area and the analysis was done using social package for statistical software (SPSS) version 20.00 for windows. The descriptive statistics was used in this study. An alpha level of p < 0.05 was used to test for significance.

III. Results and Discussion

Socio-economic characteristics of respondents Table 01 revealed that majority (62.5%) of the households were male headed and the average age of the household heads was 47 years. 86.6% of the household heads were involved in agriculture as primary occupation and 43.3% were found illiterate. The average household size was 6.9 and the majority of the households (65.8%) found to be joint family type. The major ethnic group was Chhetri (85%) followed by Dalits (12.5%). The average land owned was found to be 0.29 ha. of the sampled households, the average annual income from various sources was NRs. 55,250.

Table 1

Household food insecurity status

The result revealed that 55% of the households were food insecure comprising 33.34%, 15% and 6.66% as mildly, moderately and severely food insecure respectively. While the rest 45% of the households were food secure i.e. 55% of the households in the study area reported that they "never" or "rarely" Factors affecting household food insecurity Table 03 showed that the coefficient of annual income was found to be negative and significant (p<0.01) influencing household food insecurity among households in the study area. In the same vein, the coefficient of rice production and nearby market were also negative and significant (p<0.05) relating food insecurity. However, family size was found to be positively significant (p<0.05).

Table 3

Result on annual income implies that the households with small income had the greater probability of being food insecure. This could be as a result of the fact that with less money income, households could not be able to buy the necessary foodstuffs the family requires. This finding is consistent with the findings of Abdullah (2015), and Beyene and Muche (2010). The larger the family size, the higher the probability of household being food insecure. The family size is a positive factor in determining the household food insecurity. This is consistent with the finding of Asmelash (2014), Bashir et al. (2013). Similarly, lower the rice production higher the probability of household being food insecure. Absence of market nearby also showed the probability of households being food insecure. This is consistent with the findings of Zakari et a1. (2014).

Duration (months) of food shortage

Out of 12 months, we tried to identify the months with severe food shortage through direct asking with the respondents. The months of March, June and July were found most shortage for food grains in the study area. This might be due to no stock of enough food grains and no receive of own farm production of rice and wheat as well as transport problem in rainy season. Seasonal food shortages are quite common in many parts of Nepal, a pattern that is driven by sharp monsoonal influences in production, poor post-harvest storage and handling, and weak transport infrastructure and market integration (Sanogo, 2008). People in rural areas, particularly those with a single rainy season, are often affected by the 'hungry' season, which normally coincides with the rainy season. The onset of the rains occurs many months after the harvest, when food stocks are low and workloads high because the crop must be established as quickly as possible (Gill and Hoebink, 2003).

Constraints faced by the sampled households

This study also tried to explore the various constraints/problems faced by the households in the study area. The identified constraints were drought, no rain in the district during the monsoon season and drying water resources. Consequently, lack of irrigation facility too had made the arable land dry affecting the production of monsoon crops like rice, rare use of improved farm technology, low farm and off farm income like labor work in road construction sites and poor agriculture extension services due to remoteness and hilly terrain leading to food shortage. These all factors are highly responsible for food insecurity in the study area. The findings by Shively et al. (2011) also suggested that practically all households affected by drought shifted their consumption towards less expensive and less preferred foods. Various literatures also suggests that Far-Western Mountains are characterized by extreme remoteness, low agricultural productivity, and limited access to basic services such as health care, agricultural extension services, sanitation, safe drinking water, etc. The area is drought-prone and agricultural yields are very low as the average yield of crops of area was low as compared to national averages like rice, maize and wheat of Bajura were found to be 2.3 t/ha, 2.3 t/ha, 1.754 t/ha while that of national averages were found to be 3.171 t/ha, 2.353 t/ha and 2.29 t/ha respectively (Statistical information on Nepalese agriculture 2012/13) Land use is constrained due to steep slopes and rocky soils and irrigation is almost non-existent.

IV. Conclusion

There was high food insecurity in study area, 55% of the households were food insecure comprising 33.34%, 15% and 6.66% as mildly, moderately and severely food insecure respectively. The average annual income, amount of rice, family size, and distance to nearby market were found significantly determining the food insecurity level. The months of March, June and July were found most shortage for food grains in the study area. The identified constraints were drought, rare use of improved farm technology, low farm and off farm income and limited extension activity leading to food shortage. It is recommended to launch policies and programs aiming at promoting farmers access to irrigation facility, improving farm household productivity by distributing the improved and high yielding varieties of crops, fertilizers, efficient farm machineries and market access as well as farmers be provided with extension services and non-farm income generating activities.

Table 01 . Socio-economic Characteristics of sampled households

Table 03 . Ordered Probit results of factors affecting food insecurity

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