Abstract
BackgroundThe government of Benin has initiated since 2006 many policies to promote crop diversification. The aim was to help rural household to be more resilient to food insecurity. The objective of this research is to determine how crop diversification has affected the food security status of the rural household.MethodologyPrimary data from 420 rural households were collected in the Collines Region in Benin. We use principal component analysis (PCA) to construct a multidimensional food security indices and a Simpson diversity index has been used to measure the degree of crop diversification. A linear regression model was used to determine the effect of crop diversification on household food security status.ResultsWe found that crop diversification has a positive effect on household food security status. The diversity of crops grown through dietary diversity can improve household food security. In rural remote areas where household access to food depends largely on it production, crop diversification provides farmers with the different crops that they cannot access either because of the cost or because of the poor infrastructure constraints (physical access). Beyond, the results also show that some other factors are also affecting the household food security status such as access to extension services and storage facilities.
Highlights
The government of Benin has initiated since 2006 many policies to promote crop diversification
We found that crop diversification has a positive effect on household food security status
The results show that some other factors are affecting the household food security status such as access to extension services and storage facilities
Summary
The government of Benin has initiated since 2006 many policies to promote crop diversification. Reducing food and nutrition insecurity in the developing countries continues to be a major public policy challenge. Smallholder farmers are fundamental in achieving food and nutrition security and sustainable rural development. According to Antonaci et al [3], smallholder farmers produce 80% of the food in SubSaharan Africa and are the largest providers of work for the local labor force in many developing countries. This is because poverty is still concentrated in rural areas, but the agricultural sector typically accounts for a large share of national income and employment. Van Wijk [42] recognized that policy can play a key role in defining the different role of agriculture in food security and sustainable development
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