Socio-Economic Determinants of Food Insecurity and Interventions for Enhancing Food Security at Household Level in Makueni County, Kenya

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dc.contributor.advisorLeonard Kisovien_US
dc.contributor.advisorJoy Obandoen_US
dc.contributor.authorKathuri, James Ndwiga
dc.date.accessioned2023-02-13T11:59:42Z
dc.date.available2023-02-13T11:59:42Z
dc.date.issued2022
dc.descriptionA Thesis Submitted to the School of Humanities and Social Sciences in Fulfillment of the Requirements for the award of the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Economic Geography) of Kenyatta Universityen_US
dc.description.abstractThis study sought to examine effectiveness of interventions to curb household food insecurity within Makueni County, Kenya. This study was prompted by the fact that the region is one of the Arid and Semi-Arid Lands with persistent food insecurity in the Country. The study aimed at exploring best practices of addressing food insufficiency in the region. The study objectives were to: ascertain the socioeconomic determinants of household food insecurity within Makueni County; examine effectiveness of coping and adaptive strategies undertaken by households to enhance food security; assess the effectiveness of institutional frameworks used in addressing household food insecurity; and identify alternative strategies that can be used efficiently to enhance household food security within Makueni County. Makueni County was selected because it is among the regions that is food insecure. The study was guided by descriptive research design as it captures reality as it is. A semi-structured questionnaire was used to gather data from households. This was complimented with observation method. A total of 400 household heads were randomly sampled from a total of 144,320 households in Makueni County based on the population census of 1999. The independent variables whose relationship was considered with food security as a dependent variable include socio-economic factors of food insecurity; coping and adaptive mechanisms to food insecurity and institutional interventions through which food insecurity is being addressed. The concept of food security was considered with regard to the population’s ability to produce sufficient food or being able to afford the required quantity and quality of food stuff. The Statistical Package for Social Sciences was used to analyse the data. The statistics used were mainly descriptive statistics such as mean, mode, median, percentages and correlations. Chi-Square was on the other hand was used to test the hypotheses while the regressions/logit model was applied in determining the relationships between the dependent and a set of predictor variables. Key findings of the study were that food security among the sampled population was greatly influenced by socio-economic elements such as the number of regular dependants, inadequate financial capital, lack of training, lack of adequate extension services, lack of adequate diversity of economic activities, age of dependents and land size. Therefore, the same elements play a key role in reinforcing or inhibiting the efficacy of food insecurity interventions for every household. Over 80 per cent of the farmers were found to be resilient and use a number of coping and adaptive strategies to deal with food insecurity. These strategies include food rationing, seeking for casual labour jobs, small scale business, running down assets and trade-off (buying of food instead of other household needs) among others. In spite of this, over 80 per cent of the households remain food insecure. Eighty one percent (81%) of the households did not practice the best strategies of agricultural production. The institutional frameworks have also not solved the problem of food insecurity in Makueni County. Part of the recommendations made by this study is need to explore ways of building on the household coping and adaptive strategies, enhancing and implementing National and County Government and private sector (multisector) interventions that aim at mitigating food insecurity. The study further recommends the need to establish suitable approaches to diversify economic activities for the farmers. Some of the approaches may include building agricultural industries to boost the communities’ food insecurity. The findings of this study will be useful to the National and County Governments and the private sector in developing more pragmatic and effective policies and programmes that can help in making Makueni County food secure.en_US
dc.description.sponsorshipKenyatta Universityen_US
dc.identifier.urihttp://ir-library.ku.ac.ke/handle/123456789/24774
dc.language.isoenen_US
dc.publisherKenyatta Universityen_US
dc.subjectSocio-Economic Determinantsen_US
dc.subjectfood insecurityen_US
dc.subjectFood Securityen_US
dc.subjectHousehold Levelen_US
dc.subjectMakueni Countyen_US
dc.subjectKenyaen_US
dc.titleSocio-Economic Determinants of Food Insecurity and Interventions for Enhancing Food Security at Household Level in Makueni County, Kenyaen_US
dc.typeThesisen_US
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