Characterisation of Food Security and Consumption
Patterns among Livestock Keepers in Botswana
Francis Wanyoike, Sirak Bhata and Katjiuongua, Hikuepi
International Livestock Research Institute
Conference on Policies for Competitive Smallholder Livestock Production
Gaborone, Botswana, 4-6 March 2015

Introduction
• Although Botswana has a high level of per capita income, food security for all
remains a challenge thanks to (1) economic inequality and (2) climate
• Following reports that >30% of the people suffered chronic undernourishment
(FAO, 2008), the GOB initiated numerous programs to combat malnutrition.
To date, food security for all remains an government objective (NDP 10)
• Not much is known about smallholders producers in Botswana as research and
policy have in the past focused on the beef export sector.
• The objectives of this analysis were:
– to characterise food security situation including also food consumption
patterns in agricultural households in Botswana
– to investigate the effect of various factors on nutrition in agricultural
households

Methodology
• Data used in this analysis comes from a survey of about 560 livestock
producers conducted by the ACIAR project in 2013
• Questionnaire had a section on incidences of food insecurity in households and
also frequency of consumption of various food staffs (2 wks)
• We use the data on frequency of consumption of various food staffs to
construct Food Consumption Scores (FCS) based on a methodology for rapid
assessment of food security in communities by WFP and FAO (2009)
• FCS are used to generate 3 hierarchical categories of households by their
food security status including:
– Households with poor FCS (FCS<42)
– Households with borderline FCS (42.5<FCS<72)
– Households with adequate FCS (FCS>70.5)

• Construction of food consumption scores (FCS) (WFP and FAO, 2009)
Foodstuffs are categorized into 8 std. groups
(main staples, pulses, vegetables, fruits, meat & fish, milk, sugar, and oil
Use data on frequency of consumption of foodstuffs to compute Food Group
Consumption Frequency Scores (FGCFS)
(Sum up no. of days each food staff is consumed)
Get weighted food group
scores (WFGS)
WFGS= FGCFS X weights
for respective food groups
Generate Food Consumption
Scores (FCS)
FCS=Sum of WFGS across
food groups
Methodology (Cont’d)

• To investigate the influence of various factors on food security regression
analysis was used including:
– Logit where Y=1 if a household was categorised as having a poor FCS
and zero other wise;
– OLS where Y=computed FCS
Methodology (Cont’d)

Results:
Value
Gender of household head(%Male) 79
Age (yrs.) of household head (mean) 60.4 (13.4)
Years of schooling of household head (mean) 4.9 (4.7)
Number of adults in the household (mean) 3.5 (2.1)
Number of children in the household (mean) 1.1 (1.4)
Number of heads of cattle kept 34.6 (55.3)
Number of shoats kept 4.8 (201.5)
Main activity of the
household head(% of
households)
Crop farming 53
Livestock keeping 79
Formal employment 26
Business 9
Retired 29
Claim that a HH had suffered food insecurity (% HHs) 20
Summary statistics about the surveyed households

Food consumption patterns
% HHs
No. of
days
Source (% of households)
Own prod. Bought Others
Millet 7 4.6 22 71 7
Sorghum 86 9.8 8 90 2
Maize (include pub) 87 9.2 2 97 1
Wheat flour: (include bread) 79 7.8 98 2
Rice 66 4.1 97 3
Fruits 51 6.1 5 89 6
Vegetables 78 8.1 13 85 2
Beans, peas, lentils, or nuts 57 3.8 18 70 12
Eggs 28 4.6 18 81 1
Poultry: 13 6.1 3 96 1
Beef 13 6.0 6 94 0
Pork 23 3.6 28 62 10
Lamb, Mutton 33 6.8 4 77 19
Goat meat 62 10.5 22 76 2
Fresh or dried fish or shellfish 79 12.1 2 97 1

Hierarchical categories of households by their
food security status

Logit (Coeff) OLS (Coeff)
Constant -0.94 87.96***
Gender of household head (1=man, 0=otherwise) -0.01 -1.38
Age of household head (yrs) 0.01 -0.08
Years of schooling household head 0.03 0.63
Number of adults in the household -0.31** 1.96***
Number of children in household -0.99*** 4.26***
Size of crop land (Ha) 0.002 -0.02
Number of heads of cattle kept -0.001 0.00
Number of shoats kept 0.01 0.11
Claim that a hh had lacked of food (1=yes, 0=otherwise) 0.95* -9.49**
District (Control=South East)
Central 1.82** -10.40***
Chobe 1.98*** -13.26***
Main activity of the HHH
Crop farming 0.17 2.69
Livestock keeping -2.75*** 15.54***
Formal employment -0.58 7.54*
Access to grazing land (0,1) -2.26** 38.17***
Access to cropping land (0,1) 1.21 -6.70
Logit results of the determinants of food insecurity

Summary and conclusions
 The FCS methodology of food security analysis confirms claim in numerous households that they had suffered lack of
food. This justifies continued efforts to ensure realisation of food security for all in Botswana.
 The significant effect of livestock keeping on food security implies that promotion of these activities could foster alleviation
of malnutrition especially among farmers.
 Perhaps the government and the people of Botswana could save money by
encouraging consumption of own produced foods among farmers

Data needed
• Livestock demographics & population dynamics
• Animal movements data
• Elasticities (demand, supply, income)
• Value chain process variables
– Period of time taken between farm sales and market arrivals
– Period of time taken between sales from farms and slaughter (weeks)
– Inventories of meat (weeks)
• RVF epidemiological data
• Market prices
• RVF control costs
• Draught labour parameters
Thank you