Households’ Coping Strategies to Food Insecurity: Insights from a Farming Community in Aguie District of Niger

Abstract

Niger is affected by recurrent production shocks leading the country into food insecurity situation at varying magnitude across regions. Farm households are the most affected because their livelihood relies on the agriculture sector that has the highest sensitivity to climate change. During a food shock period, households implement a package of strategies to mitigate their vulnerability from food shock. The objective of this study is to analyze households’ coping strategies to food shocks. We randomly selected 160 heads of households from two villages in Aguie Department of Maradi Region. Probit model is also used to determine the effect of households’ characteristics on the adoption of coping strategies. The study identified that households employed different coping strategies, among the most regularly employed are expenditure reduction (92.6%), smoothing consumption (66.40%), borrowing food or money (55.00%), waged labor (45.00%), and undesirable food consumption. The results reveal that the adoption of specific strategy depends on a household’s livelihood strategy and its socio-economic characteristics. Results from probit analysis show that a household’s decision to adopt a specific coping strategy is significantly influenced by gender, ethnicity, annual revenue, food production, livestock size, food stock, education, adaptive capacity, and number of meal per day.

Keywords: Adaptation, dry land, food security, livelihood, coping mechanism