Determinants of Rural Households’ Food Security in Shiselweni Region, Swaziland: Implications for Agricultural Policy

Abstract

This paper attempts to identify the fundamental factors that are key determinants of rural households' food security in Shiselweni region, using cross-sectional data and a 2-stage sampling technique to select randomly 141 households from 4 constituencies (Tinkhundla).The coping strategies, head count ratios, and logistic regression modelwere used to obtain the households' food security status and determine significantfactors influencing food security, respectively.Results revealthat 51.7% of the rural households in the regionare food insecure. Logistic regression results show that age, gender, land, and livestock ownership variablesare significantly associated with households' food security at 5 per cent (p<0.05). This study also indicates that 46% of households are likely to employ different coping strategies (reducing food consumption, skipping meals, consuming less than 3 meals per day) as their survival strategy. The implication for policy is that when moving forward in designing and implementing pro-agricultural policy, policy makers should emphasize on improving food availability and accessibility to rural households.