Enhancing Crop Commercialisation for Food Security in Rural Tanzania: A Case of Liwale District

Nelson Ochieng

doi:10.11648/j.ijae.20190405.13

Abstract

This study explores the effect of small-scale agricultural crop commercialisation on household food security in Liwale, Lindi. The study used a household survey data from a sample of 389 households that were collected in 2017. The Principal Component Analysis was used to develop the household food security index and the Cluster Analysis was used to assign the individual households to their respective clusters of food security index. The output side measure of commercialisation was used to develop crop commercialisation index, and lastly, the Ordered Logit Model was used to estimate the effect of commercialisation on food security. The average household food security index is 32%. The majority (64%) of the households were moderately food secured with an average food security index of 32.8% while only 16% of households were relatively more food secure than the rest and with average food security index of 49.1%. The average commercialisation of small-scale agricultural crops is 66%. The results from ordered logit estimation show that crop commercialisation, off-farm income, and access to extension services positively affect the level of household food security while credit negatively affects food security. The implication of the findings is that, small local processing factories should be established in rural areas to promote commercialisation, value addition and increase of market access and linkages to reduce post-harvest losses incurred as a result of poor storage technology and perishability.

Highlights

Food security considers consumption as one of the main factors in its measurement
The findings are in line with the findings of the study done by Govereh and Jayne in Zimbabwe where agriculture commercialisation was found to promote the production of food crops and generate income for the purchase of food items [17]
The results show that the average household food security index is 32%, and the majority (64%) of rural households fall under the group of households with food security index of 32.8% and very few (16%) of households are relatively more food secure

Summary

Introduction

Food security considers consumption as one of the main factors in its measurement. It is linked to nutrition and food insecurity in Tanzania becomes one of the major problems in both economic and health perspectives. The records of food security in Tanzania reveal a downward trend since the 1990s from undernourishment rate of 24.2% in 1992 to 35.7% in 2018 [1]. In 2016 the country ranked 94th out of 113 countries, with the food security index score of 36.9%. This was equivalent to 0.4% increase from the year 2015 [2]. The majority of insecure population is living in rural areas with a low level of education. Around 10% of Tanzanians live below the food poverty line and classified as extremely poor and incapable of purchasing basic common food items [3]

Objectives

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion