Summary

In this journal article, Farah Hegazi and Katongo Seyuba from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) explore how on-farm livelihood diversification affects female-headed households’ food security experiences.  A majority of the research into rural diversification to improve food security has focused on male-headed households. However, a significant portion of households in low-income and middle-income countries are headed by women.  This research considers insights from Zambia and the implementation of a project titled “Strengthening Climate Resilience of Agricultural Livelihoods” (SCRALA).

The article is published in Journal of Rural Studies

Gender and food security

Food insecurity is increasing, driven by factors such as economic shocks, extreme weather events, and conflict, and looking across the globe Africa has the highest proportion of food insecure populations. Gender is a significant factor in determining the roles and contributions of men and women to food security. Livelihood diversification is one method that households can use to manage their food security with previous research demonstrating that diversification positively affects income, wealth, food consumption, nutrition, food security, and farm productivity. However, men and male-headed households tend to experience more benefits from diversification, as gender constraints such as limitations on access to financial resources affect whether and how women and female-headed households can diversify. It is therefore important to take a gender perspective on livelihood diversification to understand how it affects food security for  female-headed households.

The research focuses on the implementation of a project in Zambia, titled Strengthening Climate Resilience of Agricultural Livelihoods in Agro-Ecological Regions I and II (SCRALA). The project included both on-farm and off-farm diversification activities and a gender component targeting both male-headed and female-headed households, thus allowing for comparisons. Zambia has a population of around 19.6 million with an estimated 5.8 million living with acute food insecurity.

Key Messages

• Research examining the effect of livelihood diversification on food security has tended to focus on male-headed households. However, women and female-headed households significantly contribute to food security and also engage in diversifying their livelihoods.
• Women face barriers to diversification which affect the ultimate outcomes of their efforts.
• On-farm diversification was more effective in improving the food security experiences of female-headed households compared with off-farm diversification.
• Diversification created a sense of empowerment amongst female-headed households and allowed them to further diversify their livelihoods.

Conclusions

These results highlight how livelihood diversification can lead to different food security outcomes for female headed households when compared to male headed households. It has contributed to research on the important relationship between gender, livelihood diversification and food security. Future research could focus on gaining more insight into the differences between the outcomes of on-farm and off-farm diversification for female-headed households.

Citation

Hegazi, F. Seyuba, K. (2024). Gender, livelihood diversification and food security: Insights from rural communities in Zambia, Journal of Rural Studies 109 (2024), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrurstud.2024.103321