Livelihoods Strategies and Household Resilience to Food Insecurity: A Case Study from Rural Tunisia

Abstract

Due to the decrease of household incomes, the increase of food prices, and the negative effects of climate change on agricultural production, Tunisia faces a food insecurity challenge, especially in rural and arid areas. The purpose of our research is to understand and explore household resilience to food insecurity in two villages, Selta and Zoghmar, in central Tunisia. A cross-sectional survey of 250 sample households was conducted in the villages. Factor analysis and regression models were employed to analyze the data using SPSS version 21. The results indicate that only around 36% of the households were resilient at different levels. In Selta, 62.8% and in Zoghmar 66.7% of the households were vulnerable. As indicated by the factor loadings and beta coefficients, income and food access, adaptive capacity, and the social safety net were important dimensions of household resilience to food insecurity, being positively correlated with the resilience index. However, asset possession, and climate change negatively affect household resilience. Therefore, interventions must target strategies that address the different levels of resilience reflected by the resilience estimators. These estimators were generated by focusing mainly on building farmers' knowledge of how to face the different difficulties and challenges.

Social Self-Organization and Social-Ecological Resilience in Food Systems: Lessons from Smallholder Agriculture in Kenya and Indigenous Guaraní Communities in Bolivia

“…However, we regard groups as complex systems that do not exist in isolation from influence from outside the community and the food system, and who, due to the interaction between themselves, have a potential to influence policy (Arrow, McGrath, and Berdahl 2000) Social aspects of resilience concern social entities such as individuals, households, and communities, and their abilities to tolerate, cope with, and adjust to environmental and social changes (Keck and Sakdapolrak 2013). At the household level, resilience depends on household income, access to food and assets such as livestock and land, institutions and entitlements, knowledge, and information (Dhraief et al 2019). To be resilient, vulnerable groups require safety nets such as cash transfers, food assistance, and employment-based programs.…”

Evaluation of Household Resilience Capacity Index to Food insecurity Case study: Hosein Abad Rekhneh Gol village - Iran.

“…The higher the RCI score obtains, the more resilient households to food insecurity. The present study used the grouping method for four levels of resilience which are randomly proposed by Dhraief et al (2019):…”

“…The definition and development of models used in food security studies have led to the creation of resilient systems that consider households as components of this system. Therefore, consid-ering households as a unit of analysis is one of the common references in the field of resilience and food insecurity studies (Dhraief et al, 2019). RIMA is based on a definition of resilience, "the ability of households to return to previous living conditions -such as achieving food security -after a shock," and present how households cope with shocks and fluctuations through various econometric methods (FAO, 2016).…”

Determinants of Smallholder Households’ Resilience to Livelihood Insecurity in Goncha District, Northwest Highlands of Ethiopia

“…This implies that the more adaptive capacity and the more assets a household possesses could significantly contribute to the higher capacity of household resilience for livelihood security. Adaptive capacity was the most decisive factor responsible for household resilience to food insecurity [38,57,19,40,48], and multidimentional poverty reduction [51]. The adaptive capacity in turn depends on the level of assets possessed at household level [19].…”