Food Poverty Case Study

Analysis of factors affecting food access in rural households in Ludlow village; Mpumalanga.

Introduction and Background information

South Africa as a country is considered as being food secured at the national level (statsSA, 2002). However, the same cannot be said at the household level. Food access is defined as “when individuals have adequate income or other resources to purchase or barter to obtain levels of appropriate foods needed to maintain consumption of adequate diet or nutrition” (USDA 1992).

VARIABLES

 Household size—number of people in the household

 Household head (gender) female headed or male headed =dummy

 Employment status ---- household employed or unemployed= dummy

 Educational level household head educated

The aim of the study was to develop an objective tool that will measure food insecurity in South Africa estimating national and provincial dominance rates and to also identify determinants of food insecurity. Secondary data was used and tow methods of internal validation were used. The Minimum Living Levels (MLL) and it was done by the University of South Africa’s bereau of market research and the other method used was the food energy available to each household in the IES was calculated and compared with each household’s total energy needs. Ndhleve et al (2012) conducted a study titled Household food security in a coastal rural community of South Africa: Status, causes and coping strategies. The paper used descriptive statistics, household food accessibility index, and ordinal regression analysis on a sample of 159 randomly selected households to model the risk of inadequate access to food among households in a coastal rural community of Hamburg, in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa. Data was collected using household questionnaire survey. The study showed that 9% of the households experience severe inadequate access to food, while 78% have moderate access to food and 13% have access to adequate