Homestead Food Production (HFP) with or without Aquaculture Improves Women's Dietary Diversity Scores, Household Food Security and Income in Prey Veng Province, Cambodia

Abstract

ObjectivesTo determine the impact of plant‐based HFP (diversified home gardens) with or without aquaculture (fishponds) on women's dietary diversity, household food security, and income in Prey Veng province, Cambodia.MethodsThis was a three‐arm cluster‐randomized control trial conducted during July 2012 to June 2014. In total, 900 households in 90 villages (clusters) from four districts in Prey Veng province were randomized to one of three groups: 1) plant‐based HFP only; 2) plant‐based HFP plus aquaculture; and 3) control. Surveys were administered at baseline and end‐line, which included models on Individual Dietary Diversity (DD); a Household Food Insecurity Access Scale (HFIAS) tool; and the money earned from selling HFP products in the previous 2 months. Women were categorized into one of three groups based on their DD score: low DD (consumption of <=3 food groups in the previous 24h), medium DD (consumption 4 or 5 food groups); and high DD (consumption of >= 6 food groups). Households were categorized to one of four groups according to their degree of food security from food secure to severely food insecure. Data were analyzed as intent‐to‐treat. Missing values were handled using the maximum likelihood method, which takes all available data for each subject to construct the maximum likelihood function and estimates parameters in relevant models. To address the clustering effect, changes from baseline to endpoint were analyzed using generalized linear mixed models with multinomial distribution, using cumulative logit link for categorical variables and Gamma distribution for continuous measures.ResultsWomen in the intervention groups (plant‐based HFP and plant‐based HFP + fishponds) were more likely to have consumed >=6 foods groups (high dietary diversity) versus <=3 food groups (low dietary diversity) in the previous 24h, as compared to women in the control group (OR: 1.63, 95% CI: 1.01, 2.12; p<0.01; and OR: 1.46, 95% CI: 1.01, 212; p=0.01, respectively). Similarly, households in the plant‐based HFP + fishponds group were more likely (OR: 1.73; 95% CI: 1.09, 2.75) to be food secure as compared to control households (p=0.02), with a similar trend observed among households in the plant‐based HFP only group when compared to control (OR: 1.57, 95% CI: 1.00, 2.52; p<0.127). Income from HFP increased from baseline to end‐line in the intervention households, with no change observed in the control households. Specifically, the average income (in USD) from HFP was 30.00 and 39.28 times greater for households in the plant‐based HFP and plant‐based HFP + fishponds groups, respectively, as compared to control (p< 0.001).ConclusionsHFP with or without fishponds is an efficacious means of improving food security, dietary diversity, and livelihoods of poor, rural women farmers’ in Prey Veng province, Cambodia.Support or Funding InformationThis work was carried out with the aid of a grant from the International Development Research Centre, Ottawa, Canada www.idrc.ca, and with financial support from the Government of Canada, provided through Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development Canada (DFATD), www.international.gc.ca.”