An analytical study of food security indicators for farm households in the coastal area of Syria

Abstract

As Syria enters its tenth year of crisis, the problem of food insecurity has increased and has become a critical issue at the local and global levels. The aim of this research is to measure the farm households’ food security status in the coastal area, using a set of internationally approved measures, which are the Food Consumption Score (FCS), the Reduced Coping Strategies Index (rCSI), and the Consolidated Approach to Reporting Indicators of Food Security (CARI). The research relied on collected preliminary field data using a questionnaire form during the months of October and November of 2019, the study was conducted on a random sample of 382 farm households distributed between Lattakia and Tartous governorates based on their percentage of the total number of households. The results showed that the food consumption score gave the lowest level of food insecurity among households, followed by the Food Security Index of the Consolidated Approach to Reporting Indicators of Food Security. While the reduced coping Strategies Index gave the highest level of household food insecurity, where the value of these three indicators was 20.6, 21.6, 47.2% respectively. The study recommended the necessity of using multiple indicators to measure the different dimensions of food security, and that the combination of indicators can improve the measurement of food insecurity, as this reduces the false possibilities, whether positive or negative, and the misclassification of households’ food security status.