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Seasonal Food Insecurity among Farm Workers in the Northern Cape, South Africa

Very little is known about seasonal hunger in South Africa, or about the food security and nutritional status of farm workers. This article identifies a pathway to seasonal hunger—through intra-annual fluctuations in agricultural employment and income—that is underanalyzed in the literature. We repo...

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Autores principales: Devereux, Stephen, Tavener-Smith, Lauren
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2019
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6683081/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31284521
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/nu11071535
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author Devereux, Stephen
Tavener-Smith, Lauren
author_facet Devereux, Stephen
Tavener-Smith, Lauren
author_sort Devereux, Stephen
collection PubMed
description Very little is known about seasonal hunger in South Africa, or about the food security and nutritional status of farm workers. This article identifies a pathway to seasonal hunger—through intra-annual fluctuations in agricultural employment and income—that is underanalyzed in the literature. We report on findings from a year-long data collection process, comprising baseline and endline surveys and monthly monitoring of three food security indicators, with a sample of 195 female farm workers in the Northern Cape province in South Africa. The three monthly monitoring indicators—the Household Food Insecurity Access Scale (HFIAS), Dietary Diversity Score (DDS), and Coping Strategies Index (CSI)—which measure different aspects of food insecurity, are analyzed to determine whether and to what extent food security fluctuates seasonally in our sample. HFIAS results show unambiguous evidence of seasonal food insecurity, with the highest prevalence (88 percent experiencing severe food insecurity) and severity during the low employment winter period, and lowest prevalence (49 percent) and severity during the summer harvest, which corresponds with relatively higher employment and earnings. The DDS results show evidence of highest dietary diversity during summer and the CSI results reveal the need to employ coping strategies to deal with intensified food insecurity during winter.
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spelling pubmed-66830812019-08-09 Seasonal Food Insecurity among Farm Workers in the Northern Cape, South Africa Devereux, Stephen Tavener-Smith, Lauren Nutrients Article Very little is known about seasonal hunger in South Africa, or about the food security and nutritional status of farm workers. This article identifies a pathway to seasonal hunger—through intra-annual fluctuations in agricultural employment and income—that is underanalyzed in the literature. We report on findings from a year-long data collection process, comprising baseline and endline surveys and monthly monitoring of three food security indicators, with a sample of 195 female farm workers in the Northern Cape province in South Africa. The three monthly monitoring indicators—the Household Food Insecurity Access Scale (HFIAS), Dietary Diversity Score (DDS), and Coping Strategies Index (CSI)—which measure different aspects of food insecurity, are analyzed to determine whether and to what extent food security fluctuates seasonally in our sample. HFIAS results show unambiguous evidence of seasonal food insecurity, with the highest prevalence (88 percent experiencing severe food insecurity) and severity during the low employment winter period, and lowest prevalence (49 percent) and severity during the summer harvest, which corresponds with relatively higher employment and earnings. The DDS results show evidence of highest dietary diversity during summer and the CSI results reveal the need to employ coping strategies to deal with intensified food insecurity during winter. MDPI 2019-07-05 /pmc/articles/PMC6683081/ /pubmed/31284521 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/nu11071535 Text en © 2019 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Devereux, Stephen
Tavener-Smith, Lauren
Seasonal Food Insecurity among Farm Workers in the Northern Cape, South Africa
title Seasonal Food Insecurity among Farm Workers in the Northern Cape, South Africa
title_full Seasonal Food Insecurity among Farm Workers in the Northern Cape, South Africa
title_fullStr Seasonal Food Insecurity among Farm Workers in the Northern Cape, South Africa
title_full_unstemmed Seasonal Food Insecurity among Farm Workers in the Northern Cape, South Africa
title_short Seasonal Food Insecurity among Farm Workers in the Northern Cape, South Africa
title_sort seasonal food insecurity among farm workers in the northern cape, south africa
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6683081/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31284521
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/nu11071535
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