Improving Household Food Research Articles

Female-Headed Households and Female-Maintained Families: Are They Worth Targeting to Reduce Poverty in Developing Countries?

Controversy exists over whether to target public- and private-sector programs to female-headed households in developing countries in the attempt to combat poverty and social disadvantage. The issues related to the definition and measurement of female headship and the importance of the concept for development policy are discussed. A systematic review is then presented of the empirical evidence on the relation between female headship and poverty. If female-headed households tend to be poorer on average than other households headship should seriously be considered as a potentially useful criterion for targeting antipoverty interventions especially in developing countries where means testing is not feasible. The authors examine the potential costs and benefits of targeting female headship and review the experience of Chile one of the few countries which has targeted female headship through government intervention and the only one which has evaluation data available. The analysis of the project experience is used along with a review of the empirical evidence to answer the question of the desirability and efficiency of targeting female headship in order to reduce poverty in developing countries.

INTERCROPPING—THE HIDDEN REVOLUTION: A SOLUTION TO LAND SCARCITY AND HOUSEHOLD FOOD SECURITY / TUSSENVERBOUING—DIE VERSKUILDE REVOLUSIE: 'N OPLOSSING VIR GRONDSKAARSTE EN HUISHOUDELIKE VOEDSELSEKURITEIT

Many development—economists have regarded intercropping as a traditional way of growing crops, which to them cannot stand up to present day realities. The results in this paper and other research results give a different picture. It shows that intercropping has a higher total productivity per unit land area and greater stability of yields and revenues than its monocropping counterparts. It could therefore be seen as a system which could be used to fill the gap created by the problem of scarcity of land as well as using it to improve household food insecurity.

Caregiver interpretation of infant behavior

With the financial support from various development partners, Ethiopia has designed and implemented several programs to improve household food security. Yet, food insecurity is still a major challenge to several millions of people in the country and it is questionable whether the different food security programs implemented over the past years have been successful. Using a propensity score matching method to control for pre-intervention differences, this study examined the impact on household food calorie intake of an integrated food security program (IFSP), which had been implemented in Northwestern Ethiopia by two non-governmental organizations as a case study. The estimated results provide evidence that IFSP has a positive and statistically significant effect on food calorie intake. In particular, IFSP has raised physical food calorie intake by 30% among the beneficiary households. However, we also found that IFSP has differential impact depending on family size, landownership and gender of head of household. Overall, the paper provides evidence that supporting integrated food security programs is important to improve food security in rural areas.

Cultivation, preparation and consumption of ensete (ensete ventricosum) in Ethiopia

AbstractIn Ethiopia almost 10 million people are dependent on ensete (Ensete ventricosum (Welw) Cheesrnan), also known as ‘false banana’. In the Gurage area in Central Ethiopia, agronomic and nutritional aspects of ensete were studied in 60 households in six villages. Ensete is propagated vegetatively and has a 6‐year growing cycle during which it is transplanted three or four times. Men harvest the plants; women scrape the pseudo stem in order to separate the starchy pulp from the fibre, and pulverise the corm. The pulp is fermented and stored for up to 5–7 years in earthen pits. The yield of ensete food (ko'cho) was found to be 34 kg per plant or 9.5 tons ha −1 per year. Compared with other foods grown in Ethiopia, the energy yield of ensete (6.1 MJ m −2 per year) was higher than that of all cereals, Irish potato, sweet potato and banana, but lower than that of cassava. The protein yield of ensete was higher (11 ± 4gm−2 per year) than all of the crops mentioned above, except for banana and Irish potato. To make ensete bread, fermented pulp is squeezed to make it drier, chopped to shorten the fibres and a 2 cm layer is baked for 15 min. Unfermented freshly harvested corm is also eaten after boiling. All foods have a low protein content (4–22 gkg−1). Bu'lla, white desiccated juice collected from the pulp, is more energy rich (8.5 MJ kg−1) than ko'cho (6.5 MJkg−1). A dietary survey, conducted in 39 households comprising 237 persons, showed that the average daily intake of 0.55 kg ensete provided 68% of total energy intake, 20% of protein, 28% of iron but no vitamin A. Energy intake from all food consumed was very low, being only 60% of requirements, while protein intake at 107% was ample. Since ensete can be stored for years, is readily available throughout the year and can withstand dry periods, its cultivation can significantly improve household food security in highland areas prone to drought and famine.

The Impact of Non-Traditional Export Agriculture on Income and Food Availability in Guatemala: An Intra-Household Perspective

This paper assesses the impact of non-traditional agriculture exports (NTAE) in highland Guatemala on the level and distribution of household income, and the financing and purchase of food items. Heckman's two-step procedure was used to control for self-selection of NTAE producers and potential correlation of preferences. Farmers with greater extension of land, as well as younger Catholic farmers with higher-quality land, are most likely to adopt the new crops (broccoli, snow peas (mange-tout!), and NTAE crops are highly profitable for those who adopt them. Despite the widespread use of female labour in the production of NTAE crops, the extent of adoption is not negatively associated with women's ability to generate independent income. Land devoted to the new crops also exhibits a strong positive relationship with subsistence production of corn and beans. Weak evidence supports the hypothesis that distinct intra-household income transfer patterns obtained in NTAE crop-adopting households compared with non-adopting households: in the former, the level of the weekly food allowance provided to women by their husbands is less responsive to changes in both household and female income, making women's earnings a more important overall determinant of food expenditure. A simulation exercise showed that households that have not adopted new crops would use increases in income to augment food expenditures to a much greater extent than adopting households. Within adopting households, the impact of increases in women's income on food expenditures is nearly double that of increases in men's income. Women's flexibility with regard to the allocation of their labour time and income plays an important role in the relative success of non-traditional agriculture as a means of improving household food availability. Improving the food consumption of poor households is often an important implicit or explicit goal of income-generating strategies such as the promotion of non-traditional agricultural export (NTAE) crops. However, a fair amount of controversy surrounds the strength of the relationship between increases in household income and greater access to and intake of nutritious foods. This is particularly the case when those increases in income are based on the displacement of subsistence crops and/or are biased in flavour of men, who may have less propensity than women to spend marginal income gains on food for the family. The nutritional impact of NTAE in highland Guatemala was assessed in a conceptual framework that accounts for the mediating influences of changes in household income, subsistence food production, and alterations in intra-household resource transfers. The data were drawn from a survey of over 300 rural households in five central highland communities between October 1990 and August 1991.

Household Food Security, Farm Trees, and Agroforestry: A Comparative Study in Indonesia and the Philippines

Increasing numbers of studies suggest that farm trees and agroforestry practices improve household food security. Some have further speculated that poor farmers are responding to decreasing access to land and declining agricultural productivity by increasing farm tree and agroforestry activities because of the multiple benefits of trees, which are cash crops that demand relatively low levels of labor. This paper argues that the choice to cultivate trees, the decision as to which specific tree species are to be cultivated, and the determination of the spatial and temporal association of those trees with annual crops must all be evaluated on a historical and regional basis. Furthermore, in Southeast Asia. food security and upland farm decisions must be viewed within the broader context of the rice economy - the value people have for consuming rice, and its central position in household production decisions.