Determinants of food security among rural households of the Mopani District Municipality, Limpopo Province of South Africa

Abstract

Regardless of the several measures implemented by the South African government to curb food insecurity, majority of rural households are still experiencing food insecurity at a provincial level in Limpopo Province. This could be because of the high unemployment rate that the rural households are experiencing at a provincial level. As many of the rural households’ members went as far as obtaining tertiary education, most individuals still find it difficult to secure jobs and this results to many rural households depending on social grants for a living. In addition, social grant money alone does not become enough to meet their entire families’ food needs. The study was conducted at Mopani district municipality. Multistage sampling procedure was used, and the villages were selected based on probability proportionate to size. Thus, making the total of 173 rural households. The objectives of the study were to profile the socio-economic characteristics of rural households and to identify food security status of rural households and to determine factors that influence food security among rural households. To analyse the data, Household food insecurity access scale, descriptive statistics and Multinomial logistic regression model were used. From the findings of the study, the results revealed that majority of rural households in Mopani district municipality were found to be moderate to severe food insecure.