scholarly journals Sustainable Agricultural Practices, Farm Income and Food Security among Rural Households in Africa

Author(s):  
Abdul-Hanan Abdallah ◽  
Awal Abdul-Rahman ◽  
Gazali Issahaku

Abstract Sustainable agriculture has been recognized in the literature as one of the important pathways to ensuring food systems and livelihoods among rural households in Africa. Using data from the ‘Intensification of Food Crops Agriculture in Sub-Saharan Africa (Afrint)’ project, we examine the impact of adoption of multiple sustainable agricultural practices (SAPs) - zero-tillage, intercropping, residue incorporation and animal manure - on farm incomes and food security (captures as self-sufficiency in food production-SSF) among African rural households. Multinomial endogenous treatment effect (METE) method is applied to control potential selection bias. In addition, the multivalued treatment effects (MTE) model and dose-response-functions (DRFs) are also used to examine the treatment effects heterogeneity associated with SAPs adoption. The study reveals that joint adoption of SAPs is increased farm income and food security relative to the adoption of a single practice. Households obtain significantly higher farm income (FI) and food security (FS) via adoption of at least three practices relative to households adopting less than three practices. These findings reaffirm the benefits of adopting SAPs as a package rather than single practice, to enable farm households to derive significant welfare benefits.

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thompson, John Thompson, John ◽  
Njuguna Ndung’u ◽  
Miguel Albacete ◽  
Abid Q. Suleri ◽  
Junaid Zahid ◽  
...  

Studies of livelihoods and food systems since the start of the global pandemic in 2020 have shown a consistent pattern: the primary risks to food and livelihood security are at the household level. Covid-19 is having a major impact on households’ production and access to quality, nutritious food, due to losses of income, combined with increasing food prices, and restrictions to movements of people, inputs and products. The studies included in this Research for Policy and Practice Report and supported by the Covid-19 Responses for Equity (CORE) Programme span several continents and are coordinated by leading research organisations with a detailed understanding of local food system dynamics and associated equity and livelihood issues in their regions: (1) the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on livelihoods in sub-Saharan Africa; (2) supporting small and medium enterprises, food security, and evolving social protection mechanisms to deal with Covid-19 in Pakistan; and (3) impact of Covid-19 on family farming and food security in Latin America: evidence-based public policy responses.


2016 ◽  
Vol 55 (4I-II) ◽  
pp. 561-588 ◽  
Author(s):  
Munir Ahmad Gattoo ◽  
Ghulam Mustafa ◽  
Muhammad Iqbal

The study used data from 3298 food crop growers in Pakistan. Potential outcome treatment effects model was applied to evaluate the impact of adaptations on household food security. A household Food Security Index (FSI) was constructed applying Principle Component Analysis (PCA). Adaptation strategies employed by the farmers in response to climate change were categorised into four groups namely: changes in sowing time (C1); input intensification (C2); water and soil conservation (C3); and changes in varieties (C4). Out of 15 mutually exclusive combinations constructed for evaluation, only 7 combinations were considered for estimating the treatment effects models because of limited number of observations in other cases. Results of only two of the 7 are discussed in the paper, as the other 5 had very small number of adapters and the impact measures shown either insignificant results or had opposite signs. The first (C1234) combined all the four, while the second (C234) combined the last three strategies. The results suggest that the households which adapted to climate changes were statistically significantly more food secure as compared to those who did not adapt. The results further show that education of the male and female heads, livestock ownership, the structure of house—both bricked and having electricity facility, crops diversification, and non-farm income are among the factors, which raise the food security of farm households and their impacts are statistically significant. The variables which are significantly negatively associated with the food security levels include age of the head of household, food expenditure management, households having less than 12.5 acres of land— defined as marginal (cultivate 6.25 to 12.5 acres). Farmers of cotton-wheat, rice-wheat, and rain-fed cropping systems are found to be more food secure as compared to the farmers working in the mixed cropping systems where farm holdings are relatively small and high use of tube-well water adding to salinity of soils. It is crucial to invest in the development of agricultural technological packages, addressing issues of climate change relevant to different ecologies and farming systems; improve research-extension-farmer linkages; enhance farmers‘ access to new technologies; improve rural infrastructure; development of weather information system linking meteorological department, extension and farmers; and establishment of targeted food safety nets as well as farm subsidy programs for marginal farm households.


Author(s):  
Philip K. Thornton ◽  
Peter G. Jones ◽  
Polly J. Ericksen ◽  
Andrew J. Challinor

Agricultural development in sub-Saharan Africa faces daunting challenges, which climate change and increasing climate variability will compound in vulnerable areas. The impacts of a changing climate on agricultural production in a world that warms by 4 ° C or more are likely to be severe in places. The livelihoods of many croppers and livestock keepers in Africa are associated with diversity of options. The changes in crop and livestock production that are likely to result in a 4 ° C+ world will diminish the options available to most smallholders. In such a world, current crop and livestock varieties and agricultural practices will often be inadequate, and food security will be more difficult to achieve because of commodity price increases and local production shortfalls. While adaptation strategies exist, considerable institutional and policy support will be needed to implement them successfully on the scale required. Even in the 2 ° C+ world that appears inevitable, planning for and implementing successful adaptation strategies are critical if agricultural growth in the region is to occur, food security be achieved and household livelihoods be enhanced. As part of this effort, better understanding of the critical thresholds in global and African food systems requires urgent research.


Author(s):  
Sanjaya Rajaram ◽  
Maarten van Ginkel

Many solutions have been proposed to address food security. We present here a prioritized set of actions achievable within the next 2–10 years. By taking a systems approach we follow the impact pathway backwards starting from the needs and desires of the end-users to eventually define the research agenda that will exactly address those targeted solutions with positive impacts. The following actions emerge as high-priority and achievable in the near future: new research tools to study food systems; dis-aggregated intra-household surveys to reveal within-family inequalities in food access; increased scientific consensus on climate change impacts in sub-Saharan Africa; rapid response measures to address sudden emergencies, such as capturing excess rainfall water; financial tools to enable rapid responses with recovery measures afterwards; consideration of restrictions that excess heat and humidity impose on human productivity; secure land ownership and tenure rights to encourage long-term agricultural investment; mechanization at all stages along the food system.


Author(s):  
Ayodeji Kehinde ◽  
Mary Kehinde

This study investigated the impact of credit access and cooperative membership on food security of rural households in Southwestern Nigeria. A multi stage sampling procedure was employed to select 300 rural households for the study. Data were analyzed using food security index, binary logit model, propensity score matching (PSM) and Augmented inverse probability weighting model (AIPW). Binary logit estimate reveals that age, household size, years of education, farm size, farm income and non-farm income significantly influenced the likelihood of rural households being members of cooperatives while household size, years of education, farm size, gender, asset and farm income significantly influenced the likelihood of rural households’ access to credit. Food security index revealed that about 66 percent of the households are food insecure. PSM revealed that cooperative membership and credit access is expected to increase the food security of rural households by approximately 1446 and 1496 kilocalories per person per day, respectively. AIPW revealed that cooperative membership and credit access is expected to increase the food security of rural households by approximately 1888 and 1899 kilocalories per person per day, respectively. The study concluded that credit access and cooperative membership has a positive and significant impact on food security of rural households. Thus, any programmes targeted at ensuring rural households’ food security, particularly southwest should take into cognizance their credit access and cooperative membership.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thompson, John Thompson, John ◽  
Njuguna Ndung’u ◽  
Miguel Albacete ◽  
Abid Q. Suleri ◽  
Junaid Zahid ◽  
...  

Studies of livelihoods and food systems since the start of the global pandemic in 2020 have shown a consistent pattern: the primary risks to food and livelihood security are at the household level. Covid-19 is having a major impact on households’ production and access to quality, nutritious food, due to losses of income, combined with increasing food prices, and restrictions to movements of people, inputs and products. The studies included in this Research for Policy and Practice Report and supported by the Covid-19 Responses for Equity (CORE) Programme span several continents and are coordinated by leading research organisations with a detailed understanding of local food system dynamics and associated equity and livelihood issues in their regions: (1) the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on livelihoods in sub-Saharan Africa; (2) supporting small and medium enterprises, food security, and evolving social protection mechanisms to deal with Covid-19 in Pakistan; and (3) impact of Covid-19 on family farming and food security in Latin America: evidence-based public policy responses.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (10) ◽  
pp. 5359
Author(s):  
Afrika Onguko Okello ◽  
Jonathan Makau Nzuma ◽  
David Jakinda Otieno ◽  
Michael Kidoido ◽  
Chrysantus Mbi Tanga

The utilization of insect-based feeds (IBF) as an alternative protein source is increasingly gaining momentum worldwide owing to recent concerns over the impact of food systems on the environment. However, its large-scale adoption will depend on farmers’ acceptance of its key qualities. This study evaluates farmer’s perceptions of commercial IBF products and assesses the factors that would influence its adoption. It employs principal component analysis (PCA) to develop perception indices that are subsequently used in multiple regression analysis of survey data collected from a sample of 310 farmers. Over 90% of the farmers were ready and willing to use IBF. The PCA identified feed performance, social acceptability of the use of insects in feed formulation, feed versatility and marketability of livestock products reared on IBF as the key attributes that would inform farmers’ purchase decisions. Awareness of IBF attributes, group membership, off-farm income, wealth status and education significantly influenced farmers’ perceptions of IBF. Interventions such as experimental demonstrations that increase farmers’ technical knowledge on the productivity of livestock fed on IBF are crucial to reducing farmers’ uncertainties towards acceptability of IBF. Public partnerships with resource-endowed farmers and farmer groups are recommended to improve knowledge sharing on IBF.


Author(s):  
Chinedu Egbunike ◽  
Nonso Okoye ◽  
Okoroji-Nma Okechukwu

Climate change is a major threat to agricultural food production globally and locally. It poses both direct and indirect effects on soil functions. Thus, agricultural management practices has evolved to adaptation strategies in order to mitigate the risks and threats from climate change. The study concludes with a recommendation the coconut farmers should explore the idea of soil biodiversity in a bid to mitigate the potential negative impact of climate related risk on the farming. The study proffers the need for adopting sustainable agricultural practices to boost local coconut production. This can contribute to the simultaneous realisation of two of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the United Nations: SDG 2 on food security and sustainable agriculture and SDG 13 on action to combat climate change and its impacts. The study findings has implications for tackling climate change in Sub-Saharan Africa and in particular Nigeria in order to boost local agricultural production and coconut in particular without negative environmental consequences and an ability to cope with climate change related risks.


2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 835 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zuzana Smeets-Kristkova ◽  
Thom Achterbosch ◽  
Marijke Kuiper

Nigeria is one of the most dynamic economies in Africa. Strong GDP and population growth coupled with urbanization trends place tremendous pressures on natural resources and the food systems that are dependent on them. Understanding the impact of these “mega trends” is important to identify key leverage points for navigating towards improved nutrition and food security in Nigeria. This paper contributes to the Foresight Project of the Food Systems for Healthier Diets which aims to analyse how the food system in Nigeria is expected to transform in the next decades, and to identify the leverage points for making sure that the transformation contributes to balanced consumer diets. For the food systems foresight, a well-established global economy-wide model, MAGNET, is applied that enables to capture the interlinkages among different food industry players in one consistent framework. By linking MAGNET to the GENUS nutritional database, it is further possible to relate the developments occurring on a macro-level with detailed macro and micronutrient consumption. Model projections suggest that a process of intensification of agriculture in combination with land substitution appears critical for the evolution of food and nutrition security, and for shifts towards healthy diets for the population. Intensification results in greater diversity of the production systems, which in turn cascades into positive effects on the diversity in the food supply and better food security outcomes.


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