Tackling Food and Nutrition Insecurity among Rural Inhabitants: Role of Household-Level Strategies with a Focus on Value Addition, Diversification and Female Participation

Abstract

Ensuring food and nutrition security (FNS) is a formidable challenge under increasing population pressure. Governments around the globe have been striving to achieve this goal, but a major impact is attainable once the masses opt for measures at the household level. We conducted this study to explore household-level practices aimed at ensuring FNS and their association with FNS in rural Pakistan. Using cluster analysis, we divided a sample of 200 randomly selected rural households into high and low FNS groups, the majority of which belonged to the low FNS group. Logistic regression was applied to explore the association between household-level measures with the FNS of rural households. The households in the high FNS group adopted a greater number of measures for ensuring FNS. Households headed jointly by a male and female showed to have a higher likelihood of FNS. Similarly, households adopting diversification strategies on their farms were more likely to have high FNS. Moreover, households with working women exhibited a greater probability of experiencing high FNS. Similarly, households’ adoption of value addition in dairy products decreases the probability of food and nutrition insecurity. This study concludes with an emphasis on women’s empowerment, off-farm income diversification, and on-farm enterprise diversification to address FNS challenges.

Social Determinants of Rural Household Food Insecurity under the Taliban Regime

“…Households engaged in agricultural activity in the form of crop, livestock, or both crop and livestock production are less likely to experience severe HFI. This finding is similar to several studies that have shown that engaging in agricultural activity can improve food security status in developing countries [ 29 , 69 , 70 , 71 , 72 ]. A study by Pawlak and Kolodziejczak (2020) found that increasing agricultural activities is a key driver of improving food availability and access in rural areas of developing countries [ 29 ].…”

“…Danso-Abbeam et al (2021) revealed that engaging in both crop and livestock production improved household food security status [ 69 ]. In addition to providing income variety for farmers engaged in mixed farming, the evidence has shown that livestock production can decrease the risks associated with crop production [ 72 , 73 , 74 ]. Livestock production also provides a buffer against climatic and economic instability [ 70 , 75 ].…”

Crop diversity, sustainable food and nutritional security among smallholder farmers in Ghana

“…In the Punjab province of Pakistan, rural households that adopted climate-smart agriculture and farm diversification strategies were food secure (Haq et al. , 2021, 2022). However, the literature on this subject still remains sparse, requiring further studies to establish more conclusive evidence.…”

“…At the individual level, Muller (2009) found that producing different staple and non-staple food crops improved the body mass index of household members between 18 and 50 years of age in Rwanda. In the Punjab province of Pakistan, rural households that adopted climate-smart agriculture and farm diversification strategies were food secure (Haq et al, 2021(Haq et al, , 2022. However, the literature on this subject still remains sparse, requiring further studies to establish more conclusive evidence.…”

Determinants of Economic Value Addition of Industrial Tuna Fish Processors in the Sea Food Processing Sub-Chain in Malaysia

“…For channel III, traditional market traders buy tuna straight from the ocean fishing port, sell directly to consumers without going through many intermediaries, and produce an efficient level of 75% (Donkor, 2018). Channel IV is at the 67% level even though through long intermediaries buying products from canned tuna businesses supermarkets to consumers, this channel is quite good at marketing because the prices are appropriate and quite suitable from Channels I, II, and Channel III (Haq, 2022). Channel V is the best channel, and channel V does not go through supermarket intermediaries.…”