Food Access and Coping Strategies Adopted by Households to Fight Hunger among Indigenous Communities of Sierra Tarahumara in Mexico

Otilia Cordero-Ahiman,Eduardo Santellano-Estrada,Alberto Garrido

doi:10.3390/su10020473

Otilia Cordero-Ahiman, Eduardo Santellano-Estrada + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/su10020473

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Abstract

Households’ food access remains a concern primarily in rural households in lower- and middle-income countries. The purpose of this study is to measure food access and to identify the coping strategies in indigenous households of the communities of Sierra Tarahumara in Mexico. The representative sample was made up of 123 households from 38 communities. The survey was conducted face to face during the winter season between February and March 2015. Since all respondents only speak the Tarahumara language, authors were assisted by translators. The level of access to food was low in 54.47% of households. The main coping strategies used by households were rationing and augmenting short-term household food availability. Bivariate analyses were used, with Chi-square ( χ 2 ) test suggesting that coping strategies associated with food access included: reliance on less expensive foods, purchasing food on credit, limiting portion size at meal times, skipping meals, and restricting consumption of adults to secure children’s intake. One-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) test indicated that the income derived from various households are identical across all food access levels. We conclude that the indigenous households did experience difficulties in obtaining food.

Highlights

“Food security exists when all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life” [1]
One-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) test indicated that the income derived from various households are identical across all food access levels
Reducing poverty is a key element in a policy for food security, because poor people spend three quarters of their income on staple food, leaving them vulnerable to high food prices, and many poor people obtain much of their income from farming, leaving them vulnerable to declines in agricultural output

Summary

Introduction

“Food security exists when all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life” [1]. Monitoring food security can be useful to identify population subgroups or regions with severe conditions [15] For this reason, methodological tools have been developed to measure the state of food insecurity at household level. The methodology, called “Months of Adequate Household Food Provisioning (MAHFP)”, developed by the FANTA (Food and Nutrition Technical Assistance) Project [16], allows to identify food access levels by counting the months in which a household was unable to provide adequate food This tool captures changes in the capacity of the household to address vulnerability in such a way, that guarantees a supply above a minimum level throughout the year as well as, to identify the population’s food deficiencies or excesses. It provides the baseline for interventions that improve the food consumption in households [17,18,19]

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