The role of markets in food availability and market integration among smallholder farmers: the case of Western Kenya [Poster]

Poster presented at Tropentag 2013. International Research on Food Security, Natural Resource Management and Rural Development. "Agricultural development within the rural-urban continuum". Stuttgart-Hohenheim (Germany), Sep 17-19 2013

Crop species diversity in smallholder farms in Western Kenya and their contribution to food security

Poster presented at First International Conference on Global Food Security. Noordwijkerhout (The Netherlands), 29 Sep - 02 Oct 2013

Diversifying local agriculture: Agricultural diversity on smallholder farms and in local markets in Western Kenya

Beyond staple foods, agriculture needs a stronger focus on nutrient-dense foods (vegetables, fruits, legumes and animal source foods), suggesting the diversification of smallholder production, such as integrated farming systems. To understand the availability of agricultural biodiversity, working with partners that included the community members themselves, a farm inventory of cultivated and wild foods was carried out on 60 farms in four different districts in Western Kenya. In addition, surveys were undertaken in 15 local markets identifying the sources of food farmers were depending on for the different food groups. While the survey took place only during one point in time, seasonal availability of foods was also considered and surveyed through focus group discussions with farmers. Results showed that food availability is highly seasonal, especially in semi-arid regions, and foods are largely sourced from the own farm with the market playing an important role in closing food and preference gaps. Stronger communication/information for and by agriculture extension workers on nutrition and the importance of dietary diversity is needed. Thereby, knowledge about different food types within one food group and their nutritional values is important. In addition, understanding how they can replace each other in order to not rely on one food plant species within one group only is key

Strategy and Power: The Royal Navy, The Foreign Office and the Blockade, 1914-1917

Open Access Journal; Published online: 19 Nov 2019Our understanding of food security in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) has been hampered by limitations in the temporal and spatial representativeness of data. Food balance sheets provide scalable estimates of per capita food availability, but fail to represent food access, stability and their causal linkages. In contrast, rural household surveys represent detailed conditions for one or multiple points in time, but are influenced by survey timing and are often limited in geographical coverage. This study draws on a large sample of rural land-holding households in SSA (n = 6,353) to identify household level food access deficiencies and to understand the associations with rural livelihoods and food sourcing behavior throughout the year. Food access deficiencies were identified using food security of access and diet diversity indicators. Dietary diversity and channel of access (farm or purchased) were enumerated for the “flush” and “lean” periods and food security of access was enumerated for the lean period only - making the results of this study independent of survey timing. As many as 39% of households were classified as severely food insecure (in terms of food access) and as many as 49% of households were likely to be deficient in micronutrients in the lean period. Vulnerability to food insecurity and micronutrient deficiencies differed by household composition, agricultural livelihood characteristics and agro-ecological zone. Dairy, fruit and vitamin A-rich produce were predominantly accessed through the farm channel. Households with a livestock component to their farm had a lower prevalence of severe food insecurity and higher diet diversity scores. These findings have implications for the development of nutrition-sensitive and nutrition-specific interventions. Interventions need to be tailored to agro-ecological zone, household composition, scale of operation and production mix. Increasing income will not necessarily result in improved diet diversity or healthy dietary choices. Interventions focused on income generation should monitor and promote crop and livestock production diversity and provide nutrition education