Factors affecting food insecurity among smallholder farmers in Lira City Council, Northern Uganda

Abstract

Food insecurity is defined as a lack of consistent access to enough food for every person in a household to live an active and healthy life. This can be a temporary situation for a household or can last a long time. Food insecurity is one way we can measure how many people cannot afford food. The research study was concerned with food insecurity in Northern Uganda, a case study of Lira City Council. The purpose of the study was to analyze the food situation identifying the limiting factors for optimal food production and to identify various copying strategies employed in a situation of food insecurity in the study area. Data for the study was obtained by cross sectional design whereby random sampling was used to select respondents from the study area. A combination of qualitative and quantitative methods was used to collect data for this study. Primary data was collected from a sample of 101 respondents by using a questionnaire and quantitative data was analyzed using STATA. The research found out that the households headed by males spent UGX 40,0087.58 monthly more than the households headed by females, age group 21-40 were spending UGX 94,287.09 on food items monthly less than the age group <=20, and also household headed by the uneducated spent UGX 69345.06 monthly on food items more than the one headed by the educated. Unemployment (P-value 0.029), being uneducated (P-value 0.059), not having any other income generating activities (P-value 0.001) were the factors affecting food insecurity in Lira City Council. The study recommends that communities should be trained with much emphasis on practical and vocational education that would enable them to generate income and come up with their own businesses and earn from such businesses, also improved and modern agriculture should be adopted and practiced by households, in this there will be much harvest which in terms means household are food secured.