CHAPTER 5: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION: THE PREVALENCE OF FOOD
5.1 Introduction
Over the past years, informal street trading has been playing a crucial role with regard to employment crises and poverty reduction. However, very little is known with regard to the socio-demographic characteristics of informal street traders and their household food security. Adopting techniques established by Coates et al. (2007), this chapter assesses the status of food security of households engaged in informal street trading in TLM. The assessment is based on the self-reported outcome of food insecurity caused by insufficient access to food such as feeling hungry, reducing the number of meals, consuming food that is less liked, or consuming a diverse diet of food due to difficulties of accessing food (references in Chapter 3).
5.1.1 Household Food Insecurity Access Scale score
As already discussed in Chapter 3, the score given to households range from 0–27, where a higher score represents a high incidence of food insecurity. The results show that households engaged in informal street trading in TLM had a mean score of 7.35 with a standard deviation of 7.603 (Table 5.1). Despite the high incidence of poverty reported in Limpopo province, the score was not as high as anticipated.
Table 5.1 Average household food insecurity access scale score
HFIAS Number of households
Mean score
Median score
Minimum Maximum SD
100 7.35 5.50 0.00 24.00 7.603
Source: Field survey data (2012)
5.1.2 Domains related to household food insecurity
Respondents were asked whether they had experienced food insecurity in the last 30 days.
Those who responded affirmatively were further asked to indicate the occurrence of the incidence. The occurrences were categorised into three domains of food insecurity, namely worry or uncertainty about supply of food, limited quality of food consumed, and insufficient quantity of food consumed, according to the procedures documented by Coates et al. (2007) and Swindale and Bilinsky (2009).
5.1.2.1 Anxiety and uncertainty about the household food supply
Though food is described as the primary adequate access to a nutritionally balanced diet and is a necessity of life, the majority of households live in fear that food might run out, that food won’t last and of not knowing where to obtain food (Coates et al. 2006). Table 5.2 summarises the findings of the first domain anxiety and uncertainty about food supply.
Table 5.2 Distribution of households’ anxiety and uncertainty about household food supply in TLM
HFIAS question Frequency of occurrence in the last 30 days Never Rarely Sometimes Often Did you worry that your household
would not have enough food?
37% 12% 32% 19%
Source: Field survey data (2012)
A high number of households 63% engaged in informal street trading in TLM live in fear that food might run out. This percentage does not indicate any evidence of the severity of the food insecurity experienced. Therefore, to find the severity of food insecurity amongst the households, respondents were asked follow-up questions related to the frequency of occurrence of food insecurity in the last 30 days (Table 5.2).
5.1.2.2 Insufficient quality (includes variety and preferences of the type of food)
The literature shows that food insecurity is not just about insufficient food production, availability, and intake; it is also about the quality or nutritional value of food, which includes not only edibility but also variety, preferences and social acceptability. Therefore all nine generic questions had contained items pertaining to the domain insufficiency of food quality. Only percentages of households that were unable to consume a quality food related to dietary variety were interpreted in this study. The distributions of household consuming insufficient quality of food are presented in Table 5.3.
Table 5.3 Insufficient quality (includes variety and preferences of the type of food)
HFIAS questions Frequency of occurrence in the last 30 days Never Rarely Sometimes Often Not able to eat the kind of food you
preferred because of a lack of resources?
44% 5% 31% 20%
Have to eat a limited variety of foods due to lack of resources?
46% 6% 32% 16%
Have to eat some food that you really did not want to eat because of lack of resources to obtain types of food?
48% 8% 29% 11%
Source: Field survey data (2012)
With regards to responses related to the domain consuming minimum quality of food, the results show that 56% of households struggle to access sufficient preferable food they need. Of the 100 surveyed informal street traders, 54% reported that they were forced to eat a variety of food. A lower percentage of households 52% reported that they had to eat unacceptable food that they did not want due to resource constraints. On average, the percentage of households reporting that they consumed insufficient quality food was 54%.
As the percentage of households reported to be experiencing insufficient quality of food decreased with progression of the questions, vulnerability of households also declined.
These findings reveal that a high percentage of sampled households have limited resources and are unable to acquire quality nutritious foods, ending up having to consume food of
poor quality, which may have long-term negative health effects (Shisanya & Hendriks 2011).
5.1.2.3 Insufficient food intake or quantity of food
The domain related to consuming insufficient food quantity is an important indicator of food insecurity conditions. Households within this domain experience severe food insecurity problems (Coates et al. 2006). As already established above, affirmative responses to insufficient food intake were generally consistent with expectations of the study, indicating that as more households respond that they never experience insufficient food intake, the vulnerability of the occurrence declines. However, households engaged in informal street trading in TLM were concerned about insufficient food intake and its physical consequences (Table 5.4).
Table 5.4 Insufficient food intake or quantity of food
HFIAS questions Frequency of occurrence in the last 30 days Never Rarely Sometimes Often Have to eat a smaller meal than you felt
you needed because there was not enough food?
52% 10% 24% 14%
Have to eat fewer meals in a day because there was not enough food
55% 10% 24% 11%
Was there ever no food to eat of any kind in your household because of lack of resources to get food?
86% 2% 11% 1%
Go to sleep at night hungry because there was not enough food?
88% 6% 6% -
Go a whole day and night without eating anything because there was not enough food?
93% 4% 3% -
Source: Field survey data (2012)
Sufficient food all the time is a basic human need. However, the results obtained indicate that 48% of households engaged in informal street trading reported consumed smaller
meals due to minimum food availability. As the percentage of households experiencing insufficient food intake decreases, 45% of households reported that at some point they reduce what they eat. Of the total participants, 14% of interviewed households reported that insufficient food intake is the reality that they face on a daily basis. A lower percentage of households 12% experienced severe food insecurity conditions. A further revelation was that no households reported that they often spend the whole day and the following night with an empty stomach 7%. Taking the overall figure, a lower percentage of households encountered a situation of consuming an insufficient quantity of food among household engaged in informal street trading in TLM 25.4%.