Household food insecurity in sub‐Saharan Africa: lessons from Kenya

Abstract

Despite the widely acknowledged prognosis that the danger of unrelenting hunger and famine looms large in sub-Saharan Africa and that there is a constant need for donors to provide much required food relief, there is a paucity of literature based on comprehensive empirical work at the household or individual level. Based on data collected across two years and two locations in rural Kenya, attempts to develop further the literature on household food security. Food balances are computed and various approaches to food poverty analysis are employed by setting a very low poverty line to determine the proportion of households whose members would require external food support. Results show that per capita food production is low and varies with rainfall and food poverty and inequality in distribution are high. A great deal could be done, therefore, in the sphere of livelihood opportunities to enhance household purchasing power and hence effective demand and food distribution.

Development and the Household: Missing the point?

“…A survey of publications on development policy reveals an overarching concern with such issues as 'household ecology' (Wilk and Tannenbaum, 2001), the 'household economy (or economics)' (Goheen, 1988;Low, 1989), 'household decision making' (Haller, 2000;Kalinda et al, 2000), 'household income diversification' (Reardon, 1997), 'household food insecurity' (Ali and Pitkin, 1991;Immink and Alarcon, 1991;Kennedy and Peters, 1992;Akinyele, 1997;Nyariki and Wiggins, 1997;Phillips and Taylor, 1998;Sutherland et al, 1998;Washington and Downing, 1999) and the comparatively rare 'household livelihood strategies' (Barrett et al, 2001). In all cases, these studies treat the household as the meaningful institution through which those living in development contexts construct means of coping with the uncertainty and instability in their lives.…”

Levels and causes of household food and nutrition insecurity in dryland Kenya

“…In this Downloaded by [Western Oregon University] at 23:55 19 June 2016 approach, the main ingredients of food poverty measures are the caloric requirements, the food bundle to achieve that requirement, and the allowance for non-food items, which entail a normative judgement (Ravallion and Sen, 1996;Nyariki and Wiggins, 1997).…”

“…Although food is the defining concept, it is not all that matters. Food security encompasses food availability through production, storage or imports; and the access that people have to food through their purchasing power in markets (Nyariki and Wiggins, 1997). Access derives from the entitlements a household has to food, either through its own production of foodstuffs or through command over food in markets or other circuits, decisions over the amount and kind of food produced or bought, the internal distribution of household food amongst residents, and the health of individuals which affects the ability to secure nourishment from food ( Figure 1).…”

“…It is estimated that over 700 million people in the Third World today suffer from inadequate food intake, of whom over 100 million are found in Africa (Nyariki and Wiggins, 1997). Three quarters of those affected in this manner live in the rural areas and include those who for the most part depend on drylands for their livelihoods (Pinstrup-Andersen, 1994;Carter, 1997).…”

The relationship between El Niño Southern Oscillations and cereal production in Sahel

“…There was a 12% drop in food grown by every African during the droughts of the 1980s compared to 30 years earlier (Nyariki & Wiggins, 1997). Recently, there have been some signs of recovery from the 1980s' droughts in the Sahel region (e.g.…”