Determinants of Household Food Insecurity in Developing Countries Evidences From a Probit Model for the Case of Rural Households in Rwanda

Jean Baptiste Habyarimana

doi:10.5539/sar.v4n2p78

Abstract

<p>This study uses probit model to identify determinants of food insecurity among rural households in developing countries. The model used in this study, that allowed us to estimate coefficient and marginal effect for each independent variable vis-à-vis dependent variable, guarantees large applications among food security actors and policymakers to find out factors that significantly explain food insecurity and the level of their predictability. The ability of the model used to correctly classify food insecure and food secure households is good for the overall model and for households headed by males while it is fair for households headed by females. The empirical results show that rural households are more exposed to food insecurity than urban households. Gender disaggregation by the head of households shows that among food insecure rural households, the majority of them are headed by females. It also shows that the mean and median of predicted probability of becoming food insecure among rural households headed by males and females is 0.21 and 0.28 for mean and 0.15 and 0.24 for median respectively. This indicates that households headed by females are more likely exposed to food insecurity than those headed by males. However, as the majority of rural households in developing countries depend on agriculture, this study found that it is worthwhile for developing countries to adopt new agricultural technologies to urgently increase productivity and to implement and facilitate programs supporting rural households pathways to increase households’ livelihood capacities.</p>

Highlights

The majority of households in developing countries depend on the agricultural sector to provide the main source of food consumed in households, employment and income
For households headed by males, food insecurity has a weak relationship with household land size, household asset index, household food acquisition problem, household spending level and coping strategy index; while it has a very weak relationship with age of household head, distance to market, food assistance, government support, market contribution to household food consumption, soil erosion index per village, household head’s education level, household size, household’s land amendment level, household's farm animal, household food acquisition level, number of livelihood activities, monthly food expenditure, per capita expenditure, own production used for own consumption, land suitability per cell, membership to agricultural cooperative and agricultural loan
For households headed by males and females and when all households are combined, the covariance between the age of the head of household, distance to market, food assistance, household food acquisition problem, government support, market contribution to household food consumption, soil erosion index per village, coping strategy index and food insecurity indicated a positive relationship while the covariance between household head education, household size, household's land size, household’s land amendment level, household's farm animal, household asset index, household food acquisition level, number of livelihood activities, household spending level, monthly food expenditure, per capita expenditure, own production used for own consumption, land suitability per cell, membership to agricultural cooperative, agricultural loan and food insecurity indicated a positive indicate a negative relationship

Summary

Introduction

The majority of households in developing countries depend on the agricultural sector to provide the main source of food consumed in households, employment and income. Large unexpected increase of households’ food insecurity prevalence would jeopardize the economic development at a micro level and unexpected changes would risk the livelihood of a large portion of the population that depends on agriculture. When food insecurity prevalence increases in an economy, the percentage of the population depending on the country’s support increases. For developing countries in which tax revenue collection does not keep pace with the required government expenditure, increased number of households with food insecurity characteristics expands government deficit and renders these countries more dependent on foreign aid and support; this remains one of the main challenges to address www.ccsenet.org/sar

Methods

Discussion

Conclusion