Impact of Climate Change on Food Security of Rural Householders in Gibaish Locality of West Kordofan State, Sudan

Abstract

The current study focused on the linkage between climate change and food security of rural householders in Gibaish locality, western Sudan. The overall objective was to explore the level of food security and impacts of climate change variables on the food security of rural householders in the study area.. Multistage-stratified random sampling technique was used to select 70 households. Data were obtained from both primary and secondary sources and analyzed using descriptive statistics, household economy approach, linear programming, partial crop budget, dominance analysis, marginal analysis, sensitivity analysis, linear regression and correlation coefficients analysis were employed. In this study, the household's economy approach for the daily energy received per person per day in K. calories was estimated as 2105. With respect to WHO, minimum rate of 2300 K. calories per person per day was set as standard level. Therefore, this result implies that the household is marginally food insecure. Linear programming results indicated that the maximum combination that maximized farmer's income was attained by millet, groundnut and okra crops combination with a total SDG 11,148 (1 $ = SDG 6.64). When taking into consideration the household's food consumption behavior it was found that increase over decrease was lesser by 184%. These results ensured that the proportional combination of the food items consumed at local level would not enable the households to meet their minimum energy requirement for a healthy and active life. It was also noted that climatic variation in year 2013 cropping season has negative impact on food security situation. Partial crop budget revealed that all crops gave positive net returns. Groundnut and okra gave maximum net benefits of SDG 2056 and SDG 1380, respectively. Dominance analysis showed that Gum Arabic and Roselle were dominated due to their lower net field benefits as compared to other treatments. Results of marginal analysis showed that maximum marginal rate of return of 13733.4% was obtained by groundnut). It is noted that farmers with poor resources can accomplish returns of SDG 1.00 benefits by sowing groundnut to obtain additional SDG 137.3. Sensitivity analysis that assumed costs over run and benefits shortfall revealed that groundnut and sorghum combination was of high Marginal Rate of Return (MRR) of 12,484.9, 12,360 and 537.9 and SDG 532.5, respectively. Linear regression ensured that maximum average temperature significantly (P≤0.05) affected millet production. Other food production crops were not affected by climatic factors. Correlation coefficients showed increasing temperature and rainfall fluctuation was reported as major threats to food production. Sorghum was negatively (-0.705, p=0.01) correlated with time and growing period, millet moderately correlated with time (-0.494). However, sesame, groundnut, Roselle, cowpea and watermelon were weakly and negatively correlated with time. Consequently, millet (-0.385), sorghum (-0.128), sesame (-0.266), groundnut (-0.185), Roselle (0.242), cowpea (0.185) and watermelon (0.034) were not significantly affected, and it has negative and positive minimum correlation with average maximum temperature.