Factors Influencing Food Insecurity in Nepal

2017

This paper assesses household food security and identifies the factors affecting it in two mountainous districts of Nepal using census data from 2011/12. A binary logit model has been used because the dependent variable is dichotomous. In the study districts, farmland expansion was the major contributor to the increased production of major crops over the period 1974/75 to 2013/14. The yield growth of major crops, with the exception of potato and wheat, remained below the population growth in these districts. On average, households experienced no food shortages for about 9 months out of the year; cultivated land per household was 0.63 ha, of which around 29% was irrigated; 22% of the households were female headed; and 60% of the households worked in allied activities alongside agriculture. The results show that household food security was positively affected by the following variables: male-headed household, household members with both agricultural and allied occupation, age of the h...

Food and nutrition bulletin, 2014

Information on the association between household food insecurity and nutritional status of children and women based on a nationally representative sample is not available from Nepal. To examine the association between food insecurity and nutritional status of children and married women in Nepal using data from the 2011 Nepal Demographic and Health Survey. The Household Food Insecurity Access Scale was used to assess food insecurity in the 2011 Nepal Demographic and Health Survey. We used body mass index (BMI) to assess the nutritional status of married women, and stunting, wasting, and underweight to assess the nutritional status of children under 5 years of age. Binary logistic regression and multinomial logistic regression were performed to examine the associations. In severely food-insecure households, 51% of children were stunted and 40% were underweight; 27% of married women had a BMI below 18.5 kg/m2; children were 1.50 (95% CI, 1.15 to 1.97) and 1.40 (95% CI, 1.05 to 1.85) ti...

2009

For the purpose of this study, sample was selected through stratified random sampling from Baitadi district, which falls in rural Far-western Hills of Nepal. Both income and consumption measures of poverty revealed that problem of poverty is more severe in Melauli, which is relatively remote village devoid of transportation, communication, market, and other developmental services. Education, occupation, gender of household head, and family size are found to be the most important factors that affect income-poverty as well as consumption-poverty (food insecurity). Caste and landholding size has a significant effect on food insecurity. Households with illiterate head, head engaged in laboring, female-head, larger family size, Occupational Caste household, and small holding are suffering from both income-poverty and consumption-poverty in greater extent. Income-poverty measure shows the higher incidence, gap, and severity of poverty compared to food insecurity for all the variables cons...

European journal of nutrition & food safety, 2022

This paper aims to assess the current status and trend of food security and hunger in Nepal. Methodologically, the paper uses a descriptive research design; for this, secondary sources of data were intensively reviewed, and it draws an insightful conclusion from a variety of literature. Collected data were presented and interpreted using descriptive statistical tools such as tables, figures, percentages, and trend lines. The paper's scope is limited to the Nepalese context. Professional ethics, a minimum similarity index, and authenticity in data have been taken as ethical considerations. Around half of the households (48.2 percent) have access to food security over the course of the year in Nepal. The urban area is more secure than the rural, and the position of the Terai region is better than that of the hill and mountain regions in terms of food security status. In terms of food security and severe food insecurity, Gandaki Province performed well, while Karnali Province performed poorly. The fight against hunger has mostly stagnated internationally in recent years. The GHI score for 2022 is moderate, although at 19.1, it only slightly deviates from the 16.4 score in 2014, the 20.8 score in 2019, and the 19.5 score in 2020. Nepal's global hunger index trend is shifting from a serious to a moderate position. This paper suggests exploring future food security strategies and reducing the intensity of hunger through further research. This study would stimulate public interest in policy advocacy, which might result in widespread favorable policy initiatives for more in-depth discussions and the implementation of development strategies in developing countries like Nepal.

Journal of Bioscience and Agriculture Research

Food insecurity is a condition of limited food availability owing to a lack of money and resources.The study examined the household food insecurity status along with its affecting factors in Bajura district Nepal. Purposive and simple random sampling procedure was used in selecting 120 household respondents of Budhiganga and Triveni Municipality. Data were collected during June-July 2018 with the use of interview schedule and structured and semi-structured questionnaires. The Household Food Insecurity Access Scale was used to assess the food insecurity status. The result revealed that 55% of the households were food insecure comprising 33.34%, 15% and 6.66% as mildly, moderately and severely food insecure respectively. Similarly, ordered Probit regression model was used for assessing determinants of household food insecurity using the Household Food Insecurity Access Scale as the dependent variable which showed that average annual income, amount of rice, family size, and distance to nearby market were found significantly determining the food insecurity level. The months of March, June and July were found most shortage for food grains in the study area. The identified constraints were drought, rare use of improved farm technology, low farm and off farm income and poor agriculture extension services leading to food shortage. The study recommends on agricultural policies aiming at promoting farmers access to irrigation facility, improving farm household productivity and market access as well as farmers be provided with extension services and non-farm income generating activities.

International Journal of Sciences: Basic and Applied Research, 2019

Food security is the global issue as the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) has explicitly considered zero hunger in the Goal 2. Nonetheless, in the recent years, the number of hunger population is in constant rise. Therefore, the paper attempts to estimate the determinants of the per capita food expenditure from the household expenditure. The data of National Living Standard Survey 2010/11 by the Central Bureau of Statistics Nepal has been used for the study. The multiple regression analysis has been performed. The per capita food expenditure has been used as the dependent variable. The model was found significant and the R-squared value was found 0.77. All the explanatory variables – except gender and education level (completed grade 5-7), were found significant. The number of households, area related variables urban rural and few development regions were found negatively associated with the per capita food expenditure.

The state of food (in)security in rural communities of different ecological zones of the Kaligandaki Basin, Nepal, is assessed using a Household Food Insecurity Access Scale (HFIAS). The data were collected from 360 households using face-to-face interviews. The results show poor availability of food from subsistence production in the Middle-Mountains and Trans-Himalaya, whereas most households with sufficient purchasing power are able to access additional food from the market. Net food security is poor, with the highest level of insecurity in the Middle-Mountains, followed by the Trans-Himalaya and the Tarai. Although weaknesses were found in application of the HFIAS method due to respondent bias in subjective assessments of food insecurity in producer-consumer rural households, the method was found to be effective for rapidly incorporating utilization and stability elements into appraisals. Although not comprehensive, this approach has the potential to complement other forms of knowledge for designing targeted food policy in Nepal.-This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made.

Nepalese Journal of Development and Rural Studies

Food security in mountain areas has always been a matter of concern. The purpose of this study is to examine the food security situation and coping strategies in rural households in a mountain area. Following the descriptive research approach, data is collected through implying household survey, semi-structured interview, and observation method. The food security situation is analyzed through four dimensions of food security: food availability, access to food, utilization of food, and stability. The result shows households depend mainly on markets as their main source of household food and households follow inadequate food consumption and the majority of households' food consumption patterns constitute either borderline or poor. Households apply short-term food consumption coping strategies such as lending money from friends or buying food on credit. The study recommends that farming households be supported in terms of both short-term and long-term strategies to improve food pro...

Realizing the importance of food self-sufficiency in achieving the household food security, this paper tried to assess the food self-sufficiency situation in village areas of Nepal. Agriculture was the main source of livelihood and Bahun/Chhetri was the dominant ethnic group. Involvement of households in agriculture was found declining with the attainment of higher level of education resulting into higher concentration of illiterate and just literate manpower in this sector. The major resource determining food self-sufficiency of households, land holding and coverage of irrigation was higher among Bahun/Chhetri ethnic group and in Tarai ecological region. The better irrigation coverage together with relatively high access to production resources led to the higher crop yield among Bahun/Chhetri ethnic group and in Tarai. Thus, Tarai was experiencing surplus food crops production, which was merely enough to fulfill the deficit of Hills and Mountain regions. Food self-sufficiency was achieved among 72% of households in Tarai region while the figure of Mountain region was only 11%. Similarly, the highest proportion (53%) of Bahun/Chhetri households achieved food self-sufficiency compared to mere 10% of Occupational caste households. Together with small land holding and low productivity, production shift from food crops to cash crops were also the major factors responsible for food self-insufficiency. Purchasing was the most dominant means to fulfill the deficit food. About 20% of food self-insufficient households were unable to meet minimum level of food security threshold income for deficit months. This constituted 10.2% of sample households, who were in chronic food insecurity situation. The incidence of chronic food insecurity as well as poverty gap was the highest in female-headed households, Mountain region, Occupational caste, daily wage laborers and small landholders. Education received the highest priority for the cash income expenditure followed by food items and agriculture promotion. This expenditure patterns show the positive indication to move towards food self-sufficiency and ultimately to food security if provided with better off farm employment opportunities and better market for both farm produces and essential inputs.

Journal of Contemporary India Studies Space and Society Hiroshima University, 2012

Poverty in Nepal remains forefront in Nepalese development agenda since 1970s. However, there has not been significant improvement in poverty situation and poverty still remains the key research issue in Nepal. This study aims to analyze income and consumption measure of poverty applying an econometric tool taking a case of Baitadi district from far-western rural hills of Nepal. Data obtained from household survey is used for the analysis. A binary logistic regression model is applied for identifying the variables having a significant impact on income and consumption poverty. Both measures of poverty show that it is quite high in the study areas. Most of the factors that determine income and consumption poverty are more or less similar. However, there are still few factors that affect income and consumption poverty in different way. For instance, a chance of household to suffer food insecurity is significantly higher in Melauli, a relatively remote VDC. Subsistence nature of agriculture and absence of well-developed market structure that leads to higher price of food commdities is the main reason for such difference. Similarly, family size, operational landholding and livestock holding are important determinants of food insecurity, whereas, dependency ratio and occupation are important determinants of income poverty. Education of household head and landholding are important determinants for both income and consumption poverty.

2020

Nepal has improved food security situation in recent years, but still considered as a poor country in the world. The main objective of this paper is to evaluate the food security situation in Nepal. Food insecurity in Nepal has been associated with susceptibility to natural disasters, such as drought, governance, earthquake, floods, and landslides, vulnerability to fluctuations in global prices, civil turmoil, disease and poor infrastructures. Pandemic COVID-19 is degrading the daily life of the people and driving to food insecurity in the country. Mostly western Nepal and Terai region seems to be more vulnerable to disasters and food insecurity. In Nepal, 4.6 million people are food-insecure, with 20 percent of household mildly food-insecure, 22 percent moderately food-insecure and 10 percent severely food-insecure. This problem needs to be solved by a clear and sound policies and strategy by putting natural resources conservation in consideration.

Food and nutrition bulletin

This paper operationalizes household food security and links it to household food consumption patterns in rural Nepal. Food security has long been used as a macro-level indicator of agricultural stability by both agricultural and economic researchers. However, little work has been done to operationalize it at the household level. We view household food security as reflecting three different dimensions: past food supply, current food stores, and future supply of food adequate to meet the needs of all household members. A key method is the construction of scales that capture these different aspects of household food security. When operationalized in this way, household food security is associated with increased consumption of non-staple foods in this setting. Past household food security is associated with increased frequency of meat consumption and increased variety of food consumed. Current household food security predicts a higher frequency of meat and dairy intake and greater dietary variety. Future household food security is associated with increased total dietary variety and future consumption of dairy products. We feel that this conceptual approach to assessing household food security, i.e., the use of scales to measure past, current, and future components of food security, can be used as a framework in other settings.

Pertanika Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities

One of the key factors in reducing monetary poverty is the identification of its determinants. Using a logistic regression model and considering household poverty status (poor/non-poor) as the response variable, this paper attempts to identify the most promising factors associated with monetary poverty based on nationally representative data of 5,988 households from the Nepal Living Standard Survey (2010/11). The goodness of fit, classification, discrimination, and diagnostics of the fitted model is performed. Six factors, namely illiteracy of household head (OR: 2.20; 95% CI: 1.86–2.61), households receiving no remittance (OR: 1.90; 95% CI: 1.64–2.20), households with no landholdings (OR: 1.53; 95% CI: 1.31–1.78), households with poor access to market centers (OR: 1.77; 95% CI: 1.52–2.07), households having more than two children under the age of 15 (OR: 4.69; 95% CI: 4.06–5.42) and households having no literate persons of working age (OR: 1.29; 95% CI: 1.07–1.56) are significantly...

2015

The Rupa lake area in Lekhnath Municipality of Kaski district, at Rupa Lake basin areas of Nepal was selected to explore the impacts of climate change on livelihoods in term of food security. 20% of the wetland dependent communities constituted of sample household (HHs). Semi-structured questionnaire was taken for focused group consultations. It was found that majority of population (87%) of lake basin is dependent on agriculture for food security. There is a year-round food security for 50% of sample HHs, with 22% of this having surplus food. About 5% of HHs has food security for less than three months where as 19% HHs have food security for more than six months. Within this scenario, over 90% HHs responded to climate change in the form of rise in temperature (74%); unpredictable rainfall (77%); shift in rainfall (64%); and phonological changes (51%). About 74% of households are aware about the effect of climate change and had adopted different strategies to resist against the effe...