Food security in a changing world : disentangling the diversity of rural livelihood strategies across Uganda

Abstract

Climate change increasingly challenges smallholder farming and our ability to achieve Sustainable Development Goal 2 (Zero Hunger) in sub-Saharan Africa. Agricultural interventions are needed that aim at improving the food insecurity of the most vulnerable rural households. Interventions must fit the local context of a diverse population of rural households, and a key challenge is to identify which kinds of interventions work in which regions and for which households. Micro-level information can account for this diversity, but is an underused source of information for planning of interventions at national and sub-national levels. In this thesis, I explored how micro-level information from crosscountry household survey data can be used for effective planning of interventions. A further research aim was to understand within-country patterns of livelihood strategies in relation to food security and vulnerability to climate change of rural households in Uganda. Crosscountry household data from the World Bank Living Standard Measurement Survey-Integrated Surveys on Agriculture (LSMS-ISA) were used to 1) aggregate household level information to higher levels (e.g. districts, regions, livelihood zones), 2) spatially interpolate household level information and 3) identify hotspot areas of household vulnerability. I used data that I collected from two sites in Uganda for an in-depth analysis on current coping strategies of households for climate and price variability. Household food security was approximated using a food availability indicator that quantified the contribution of livelihood activities to household food availability. Livelihood strategies of rural households across Uganda varied with household food availability. They changed from subsistence-oriented on-farm activities to market-oriented onfarm and off-farm activities as household food availability increased. Aggregation revealed spatial differences in food availability and livelihood activities. However, a geostatistical interpolation approach showed that local variability in food availability and livelihood activities was often larger than variability across larger areas. These findings stress that the large diversity in livelihood activities within any given area must be recognised in decision making at higher levels. Climate change scenarios were linked to the household livelihood activities to identify hotspot areas of vulnerable households in a country-wide assessment of climate change impacts on crop suitability. Groups of crop-related adaptation options were determined per hotspot area. Adaptation options related to temperature were suitable in the north, while drought-related adaptation options were more suitable in the southwest of Uganda. An in-depth analysis ii indicated that few ex-ante coping strategies were applied under current climate and price variability. Such coping strategies mostly required little financial investment such as switching crops, which was common for households with more land available. Households tended to react to shocks...

Improving Assessments of the Three Pillars of Climate Smart Agriculture: Current Achievements and Ideas for the Future

“…Standardized data collection tools like the Worldbank's Living Standards Measurement Study-Integrated Survey on Agriculture (LSMS-ISA in short; http:// surveys.worldbank.org/lsms/programs/integrated-surveysagriculture-ISA) and the Rural Household Multiple Indicator Survey (RHoMIS in short; www.rhomis.org; Hammond et al, 2017a) are good examples of these with wide outreach. Recent examples of work where a concrete link was made between the basic socio-economic characteristics of the study population and CC adaptation options adopted are Karanja et al (2016) and Wichern (2019). In Karanja et al (2016) the adaptive capacity of households was explained by using the five Capitals approach, and this approach showed a good explanatory power in terms of the number of adaptation options utilized by the farm households.…”

“…In Karanja et al (2016) the adaptive capacity of households was explained by using the five Capitals approach, and this approach showed a good explanatory power in terms of the number of adaptation options utilized by the farm households. In Wichern (2019) it was shown how the socio-economic status of households was directly related to the adaptation options used, as well as the immediate coping strategies employed when a bad year is foreseen (with livestock owners opting for selling part of their herd, and with the poorest households opting for eating less). In both cases integral farm household level data collection approaches were combined with adaptation adoption analyses, and the harmonized information on basic socio-economic characteristics allowed for such in-depth analysis of drivers of adaptation adoption.…”

‘Doing gender’: impacts of local meaning making on gender mainstreaming in agricultural and climate change policy in Uganda

“…Rising minimum and maximum temperatures and decreasing or increasing rainfall patterns have already been reported in different parts of the country (Kikoyo & Nobert, 2016). Current changes in temperature and rainfall patterns are already threatening farming systems and negatively affecting food security in the country (Wichern, 2019).…”

“…Moreover, in Africa, as throughout much of the world, agriculture is both a major contributor to climate change (S. Brown et al, 2012) and one of the sectors expected to be most severely affected by it (Jalloh et al, 2013). These processes, if left unabated, have the potential to exacerbate the situation in already food-insecure nations such as Uganda (Wichern, 2019).…”

Not wrapped up in cotton wool : how risk influences farming in southern Mali

“…to do nothing) is the last option for farmers. Some examples of risk management practices that farmers in sub-Saharan Africa implement are (i) generating income from off-farm sources (Douxchamps et al, 2016;Wichern, 2019), (ii) adapting or spreading planting dates (Milgroom & Giller, 2013;, (iii) maintaining crop diversity (Frison et al, 2011), (iv) keeping livestock (Valbuena et al, 2015), (v) having fields for shared and individual production within a household (Guirkinger & Platteau, 2014) or (vi) reducing food consumption (Wichern, 2019).…”