Urban food security across the three cities: A study of fragility

Urban food security across the three cities: A study of fragility Scott Drimie, Girma Kassie & Jo Vearey University of the Witwatersrand Forced Migration Studies Programme Health and Migration Initiative

Food Security
“ when all people at all times have physical or economic access to sufficient safe and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life”
(World Food Summit 1996)

Defining Food Security:
People enjoy food security when they have access to sufficient, nutritious food for an active and healthy life. Achieving this involves:
availability : ensuring that a wide variety of food is available in local markets and fields;
access : people are able to produce or purchase affordable, sufficient quantities of foods that are nutritionally adequate and culturally acceptable, at all times; and
utilisation : food is stored, prepared, distributed and eaten in ways that are nutritionally adequate for all members of the household, including men and women, girls and boys.
Stability of all three

Measuring food security
Change in food security status since moving to the city (food availability ) .
Experience of a food shortage in the past 12 months.
Dietary Diversity Score.
Coping strategies to mitigate hunger.

Change in food security status:
Availability of food

Change in food security status since moving to Addis Ababa food availability

Change in food access since moving to Johannesburg Migrants residing informally are significantly more likely to report that their food access has worsened Chi-square 32.170; p = <0.0001

Children and Hunger Windhoek
Households caring for orphans and other vulnerable children were identified as being vulnerable to hunger.
In the households that care for orphans:
90% reported not having sufficient food.
100% of the children interviewed (qualitative study) mentioned that there was not enough to eat.

Coping strategies in time of food shortage

Coping strategies in time of food shortage Addis Ababa Almost 40% of households had taken cash credit for buying food.

Food shortage – coping strategies Addis Ababa

Food shortage - coping strategies Johannesburg Strategies to cope with food shortage 0 50 100 150 200 250 rely on hh members rely on hh members and grant money do extra work borrow from relatives outside the hh borrow from friends and neighbours rely on boyfriend nobody to rely upon relative frequencies (%)

Urban agriculture

Urban Agriculture
Johannesburg :
no evidence of urban agriculture across sampled sites.
Windhoek :
UA does not appear to provide a significant food resource in the capital city.
Water security is a particular obstacle to urban agriculture coupled with small plots and unfavourable land tenure matters.
Legacy of apartheid-era spatial planning?
Continued under democratic system

Urban Agriculture in Addis Ababa
Urban agriculture is an important activity in the peripheries and along the major rivers in and around Addis Ababa city.
41% of all respondents reported to engage in different crop production activities.
Nearly 60% of the
respondents engaged in
agriculture are from Akaki
sub-city and Kolfe-Keranyo
sub city.

Urban Agriculture in Addis Ababa
About a quarter (23.7%) of the sample households in Addis Ababa reported raising livestock.
cattle, chicken, sheep, goat, donkey, mule, horse, and others
There is a very well established marketing of agricultural products in the city.
Products of the urban agriculture are sold while on farm with harvesting and transportation costs covered by the traders themselves.

Urban food security across the three cities: A study of fragility

by African Centre for Migration & Society, University of the Witwatersrand on Jan 06, 2010

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Urban food security across the three cities: A study of fragility — Presentation Transcript