LITERATURE REVIEW
2.8 Food Security
2.8.1 Approaches to the concept of household food security
benefit from their livelihood strategies. Processes are the dynamic element of policies and institutions implying how things are actually done. Having looked at policies, institutions and processes, this dissertation would advance or add levels of participation to this category. It argues that if people participate in action planning, takes control over local decisions, develop contacts with external institutions for resources and technical advice they need and retain control over how resources are used. Such levels of participation are viewed as having a bearing on livelihood strategies that communities adopt and eventually leads to beneficial outcomes.
Beneficial outcomes are those that reinforce and expand the assets of the people, (DFID 2001).
Aspects of the sustainable livelihood framework would be utilised in this study to analyse the action of Sanale community in managing their environment and improving household food security, which is explained below.
From the above, several objectives of food security can be discerned. These are given by Hlophe cited in Rukuni,Mudimu and Jayne (1990: 38) as:
• To satisfy the basic needs of the population of the country and progressively to improve food supplies to all the people, irrespective of their positions in society.
• To achieve national self-sufficiency in food supply to the maximum extent possible in order to reduce the national dependence on external sources of food aid.
• To eliminate periodic food crises which affect some areas of the country.
Household food security hence assumes adequate access by the household to the amount of food of the right quality to satisfy the dietary needs of its family members throughout the year. Devereux (1997: 33) notes that at household level, food insecurity is the inability to acquire - through production, purchase and transfers - sufficient food for a healthy, active life. Key determinants of food insecurity relate to constraints on household food production and the limited availability of off-farm income-earning opportunities. Simply stated,the rural poor are unable either to grow or purchase enough food. However, Borton and Shoham as quoted in Latham (1997) note that household food security is a multi-faceted concept that does not necessarily lend itself to single, discrete indicators. It is however generally agreed that most rural poor are food insecure or at high risk of being so largely due to factors like capital, labour and knowledge. Within the poor people, severely affected by food insecurity are women-headed households, children under 5 years, pregnant and lactating mothers,the aged,the landless, asset poor households and households constrained by a high dependencyration,(Latham 1997). To this end achieving food security entails a sufficient supply of food, stability in terms of supply within and across years and physicaland economic access to food.
2.8.2 FoodSupply(food availability)
According to Latham (1997: 2) for a population to be nourished adequately "there must be a sufficientquantityand variety of good quality and safe food in the country".
Improving food security hence embraces any methods that endeavour to increase sustainable agricultural production of food and promotion of the same. In that light a
significant strategy for food security policy is to improve and increase food production. Increasing food production, however,does not go in isolation but calls for an understanding of the nutritional needs of the population and associated nutritional implications of any intervention.
Latham (1997: 30) further argues, "developing countries should strive for integrated rural development combining sustainable agricultural development and promotion of off-farm economic activities". Therefore, the major thrust of rural development organisations operating in food insecure communities would be the expansion of agricultural production to achieve higher yields coupled with an increase in household income.Associated with food production is a need to reduce food losses arising out of inappropriate food harvesting, processing, storage, and inefficient/ineffective marketing systems. Conversely, even after successful production, other factors can still affect food supply and these include but are not limited to transportation and repaymentsof food debts (ibid).
Maxwell in Maxwell and Devereux (2001:47) highlights that the stability in the supply of food is a necessary condition towards ensuring sustainable food security.
Such stability can be achieved through any of the following means:
• Adequate stock holding through strategic resources.
• Introducing new cropping strategies like inter/mixed croppmg, appropriate rotation systems and agro forestry.
• Promoting effective post food handling practices.
• Promoting other food household projects with a bias towards food production.
2.8.3 Access to food (food demand)
According to Pretty (1995: 16) a shift towards more intensive, sustainable forms of agriculture can make a substantial positive contribution to food security - not only through its ability to contribute to sustainable intensification of production, but also through an emphasis on improving people's ability to acquire food. Thus, access to food is dependent upon the resources that households command, the ability and knowledge to produce and procure the food it needs for the energy and nutritional requirements of each member. Access to food by an individual family member or
household is therefore a function of resource ownership, production, aid and trade.
Increasingly per capita incomes and prices play a key role in food demand. Pretty further argues that the poor are the most vulnerable to food deficits, which implies increasing their expenditure levels through the raising of incomes will provide a potential for improving their household food security status. Adequate access can therefore be achieved without household self-sufficiency as long as the household is capable of generating sufficient income, which together with own production will enable it to meet its food requirements.