eISSN: 2476-7425 pISSN: 2476-7417 JNFS 2021; 6(2): 170-178 Website: jnfs.ssu.ac.ir The Effect of Agricultural Commercialization on Household Food Security among Smallholder Farmers in Zhombe North Rural District of Zimbabwe Madududu Pamela; MSc Department of Agricultural Economics and Extension, University of Zimbabwe, Harare, Zimbabwe. ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT ORIGINAL ARTICLE Background: Achievement of food security has become one of the major challenges of most developing countries, including Zimbabwe. This study was Article history: designed to investigate the effect of agricultural commercialization on household Received: 12 Jul 2020 Revised: 20 Sep 2020 food security. Methods: This study used cross-sectional data for the 2017/18 Accepted: 20 Sep 2020 farming season collected from 165 smallholder farmer households in Zhombe north rural district in Zimbabwe. Instrumental variable regression model was applied for data analysis over the effect of agricultural commercialization. Corresponding author Agricultural commercialization was measured using the crop output market
[email protected] University of Zimbabwe participation share (COMPS). Results: The results revealed that COMPS, Faculty of Agriculture household head age, household head gender, and income per capita had a Environment and Food significant positive influence on household food security. Conclusions: The Systems, Department of results indicate that agricultural commercialization and socio-economic Agricultural Business characteristics have a role to play in defining the household’s food security. Development and Economics. P O Box MP Therefore, the findings recommend policies that would promote agricultural 167 Mount Pleasant, commercialization, which improve household food security in turn. The study Harare, Zimbabwe. recommends policymakers to promote agricultural commercialization, since it positively contributed towards household food security.