Abstract:
Food is an important basic human need for survival, growth, and good health. Most rural households
in Tanzania, Kahama district inclusive produce the food they consume. Despite this reality, a number
of households in the district suffer from food insecurity. However, there are inequalities across the
district’s ecological zones and administrative divisions. Therefore, the paper aims at determining how
farming households in Kahama District cope with food insecurity. Specifically, the paper determines
food security status based on Dietary Energy Consumed (DEC) per Adult Equivalent (AE) per
day, identifies households’ food insecurity coping strategies and examines factors influencing food
production and supply. The paper uses data collected through a survey of 150 randomly selected
farm households in Msalala and Isagehe divisions. In addition, some qualitative information on crop
production, food security situation and households’ food insecurity coping strategies was collected
through focus group discussions (FDGs) conducted in the surveyed villages. Generally, observations
based on the 24 hours recall and household income expenditure survey (HIES) indicate that food
insecurity existed among households in the study areas based on the recommended average DEC/AE,
of 2200 kcal and 2100 kcal respectively. Binary regression analysis results show that five predictors
were significantly (P ≤ 0.05) associated with surveyed households’ food security/insecurity. Multiple
regression analysis results further show that, total annual income, the amount of maize and paddy
produced, household size, the number of plots owned, and the number of cattle owned significantly
influenced the surveyed households’ food production and supply. Observations further show that
most households rely on less preferred foods as a food insecurity copying strategy. The paper
concludes that food insecurity existed among farming households in the study area. It is therefore
recommended that, farming households adopt drought resistant food crops, diversify into off-farm
income generating activities and that village extension officers (VEO’s) and communitY development
officers (CDO’s ) play a more active role to enable households achieve food security.
