Thesis (M. Sc. Agriculture (Agricultural Economics)) -- University of Limpopo, 2020 / Food security is a broad concept especially as far as rural food security in countries is
concerned. In essence, it is a phenomenon with the goal of ensuring that all individuals
have at all times, an adequate level of food and which they will be able to utilize to
meet their increasing consumption demand. Studies have shown that like other
countries, South Africa is food secure at the national level but very food insecure at
the household level. It is also shown that food insecurity is not fuelled by a lack of food
but a lack of food insecurity tackling strategies. The aim of the study is to examine the
determinants of food security among rural households in Magong, North West
Province, South Africa where the main prevalent economic activity is farming
supported with other formal and informal types of employment.
A multi-stage sampling technique was used to select the respondents that were
interviewed. The first stage involved selecting districts and the second stage was the
selection of municipalities. Farm and non-farming households were selected.
Structured questionnaire were administered to 108 households. The third stage
involved a selection Magong village using purposive sampling based on high
concentration of both farming and non-farming activities were selected, which in our
case is Magong. The fourth stage involved the selection of respondents based on
simple random sampling proportionate to size. The study employed logit model for as
data analysis. Of the variables modelled, only income and land size had a significant
influence on food security.
As far as age is concerned, it was evident that the youth participation in agriculture
lacks. This is because most young people are still after white collar jobs. Some were
still in the academic world awaiting their certificates which they hope to use a ticket to
their first job. The participation in agriculture increases steadily between ages 31 and
50 which could be because the persons in this age brackets were looking for ways to
store their wealth as they approach their retirement age. Some of the respondents
have inherited the farms from family members and are therefore “forced” to keep the
family business running for the sake of sustainability. With regards to the marital
status, there is a high number of single/ never married respondents compared to the
other groups. This could be people co-habiting and choosing not to marry as a result
of the economic conditions making marriage costs unaffordable. Divorce was at its
lowest amongst the respondents.v
In terms of the gender of the respondents, there was a high participation of women in
agriculture. This may be a result of women-based agricultural programmes
implemented in the past in the study area.
All the variables had a positive relationship with food security. Age had a positive effect
of food security, with a positive parameter (β=0.013) which indicated that contrary to
what other researchers found, an increase in age when all other factors are held
constant, resulted in an increase in food security. The marital status of the household
head also positively affected food security. This indicated that compared to their
unmarried counterparts, married household heads were food secure (β=0.049). The
findings also indicated that married couples and people living with partner had a higher
chance of being food secure than those who were single, divorced or widowed.
According to the results, male headship of households increases food security by
0.398.
It was found that the larger the household size, the more food secure it is. This may
be because as the number of members in the household increase, they find more ways
of making money and combating food insecurity. A unit increase in household size
increases food security by .093 while an increase in land size, increases food security
by 0.394. This is expected because as the land size increases, there are chances that
the productivity will also increase. From the results of the survey household income
had a positive effect on food security. Income is very important as it determines the
household’s affordability and its ability to meet its needs
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:ul/oai:ulspace.ul.ac.za:10386/3378 |
| Date | January 2020 |
| Creators | Sentsho, Segametse Christina |
| Contributors | Oluwatayo, I. B. |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | xii, 73 leaves |
| Relation |
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