Rural food security, subsistence agriculture, and seasonality



Voir les résultats en:
https://tapipedia.org/sites/default/files/file-2.pdf
DOI: 
10.1371/journal.pone.0186406
Provider: 
Licence de la ressource: 
Droits soumis à la permission du propriétaire
Type: 
Article de journal
Journal: 
Plos One
Nombre: 
10
Pages: 
e0186406
Volume: 
12
Année: 
2017
Auteur: 
Sibhatu K. T.
Qaim M.
Editeur(s): 
Description: 

Many of the world’s food-insecure and undernourished people are smallholder farmers in developing countries. This is especially true in Africa. There is an urgent need to make smallholder agriculture and food systems more nutrition-sensitive. African farm households are known to consume a sizeable part of what they produce at home. Less is known about how much subsistence agriculture actually contributes to household diets, and how this contribution changes seasonally. We use representative data from rural Ethiopia covering every month of one full year to address this knowledge gap. On average, subsistence production accounts for 58% of rural households’ calorie consumption, that is, 42% of the calories consumed are from purchased foods. Some seasonal variation occurs. During the lean season, purchased foods account for more than half of all calories consumed. But even during the main harvest and post-harvest season, purchased foods contribute more than one-third to total calorie consumption. Markets are even more important for dietary quality. During all seasons, purchased foods play a much larger role for dietary diversity than subsistence production. These findings suggest that strengthening rural markets needs to be a key element in strategies to improve food security and dietary quality in the African small-farm sector.

Αnnée de publication: 
2017
Μots-clés: 
rural development
subsistence culture
Seasonality
smallholder famers
food and nutrition security
calorie consumption