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. In addition, young- Postal code: 7217 headed, female-headed, and low-income earning households that were identified Tel: +263 774 057836 as the food insecure households. Keywords: Commercialization; Food security; Instrumental variable regression. Downloaded from jnfs.ssu.ac.ir at 13:40 IRST on Sunday September 26th 2021 [ DOI: 10.18502/jnfs.v6i2.6072 ] Introduction he effect of agricultural commercialization on relationship between agricultural commercialization T household food security was widely and agricultural productivity, but little is known on investigated in smallholder farmers. However, the the effects of agricultural commercialization on findings were controversial; some showed positive household food security. In Zimbabwe, agriculture effects, whilst the others reported negative effects. plays a significant role in economic stability and Since limited information exists on this issue in growth, contributing to 18% of the gross domestic Zimbabwe, this study was conducted. Some product (GDP) (Alexander, 2013). However, the researchers in Zimbabwe indicated a positive country is described as food-deficit with a very This paper should be cited as: Madududu P. The Effect of Agricultural Commercialization on Household Food Security among Smallholder Farmers in Zhombe North Rural District of Zimbabwe. Journal of Nutrition and Food Security (JNFS), 2021; 6 (2): 170-178. Pamela M. JNFS | Vol (6) | Issue (2) | Feb 2021 fragile food security situation (Zimbabwe ICDS collaborative interventions with short-term, mid- 2017), so that 70% of Zimbabwean rural households term, and long-term scopes by specialists, depend primarily on agriculture for their governments, and development partners. livelihoods. Economists and politicians According to Food Agriculture Organization acknowledge that agriculture is a driver for (FAO), food security is defined as a situation growth in Africa with the potential to end whereby “all people at all times, have physical, poverty and hunger (Timmer, 2005). Agricultural social and economic access to sufficient, safe and commercialization is one of the strategies used to nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food raise farm incomes and to achieve overall preferences for an active healthy life” (Food economic development (Carletto et al., 2017, Agriculture Organization, 1996). Food security has Radchenko and Corral, 2018). This paper added on four components including availability, access, the currently existing knowledge and provided utilization, and stability. Food availability and empirical evidence on the effect of agricultural access are very important in the household food commercialization on household food security. To security equation (Maxwell et al., 2014). The food measure agricultural commercialization, this study insecure population increased from 804 million used the crop output market participation share people in 2016 to 821 million in 2017 (World (COMPS). Health Organization, 2018). Global leaders This study measured household food security committed themselves to achieve sustainable using a modified food consumption score (MFCS), development goals (SDGs) that include SDG 2 which builds upon the Food Consumption Score targeted at ending world hunger. (FCS) mainly focussing on the household food The debate over the effects of agricultural security access component as one of the important commercialization is focused on food aspects of the household food security equation. security, although it is known that farming Food access is defined as the ability of a household households’ incomes increase through agricultural to acquire food from its production, purchase from commercialization (Radchenko and Corral, 2018). the market or food hand-outs (Maxwell et al., Agricultural commercialization has the potential to 2014). The FCS is a food security indicator with increase access to improved inputs and marketed composite characteristics that capture the intensity, food; hence, reducing the food insecurity problems quality, diversity, and nutritional importance of (Radchenko and Corral, 2018). Some studies various food groups consumed in a household 7. indicated the perverse effects of agricultural The FCS was calculated using the data obtained commercialization particularly on the poorest from household consumption in seven days. The farmers (Carletto et al., 2017). One of the most score uses the frequency when a household recent studies conducted in Vietnam using panel consumed food from the identified eight food data indicated that the effects of agricultural groups assigning each food group a score and commercialization on household food security was Downloaded from jnfs.ssu.ac.ir at 13:40 IRST on Sunday September 26th 2021 [ DOI: 10.18502/jnfs.v6i2.6072 ] computing the overall FCS, as primarily used by heterogeneous and depended on the agricultural the world food programme (World Food commercialization indicator and the region Programme, 2015). The food groups include (Linderhof et al., 2019). These researchers found staples/tubers, pulses, vegetables, fruit, meat/fish, that the impact of agricultural commercialization milk, sugar, and oils. on the household food security was more positive Food insecurity continues to be a challenge, in the Southern regions of Vietnam compared to especially in smallholder farmers whose the Northern regions. livelihoods depend on rain-fed agriculture. A commercialised farming household is the one Researchers pointed out the causes of food that produces significant amounts of crops for insecurity as poverty, natural disasters, climate sale and makes use of improved inputs in change, etc. The situation calls for increasing its production. The researcher defined a 171 Agricultural commercialization and household food security. commercialised household as the one that sells its crops that do well in their areas, so that they can farm products, whilst a non-commercialised meet their food requirements. One of the most household was regarded as the one that does not reviewed reasons why households fail to substitute sell its farm products. Given that agricultural maize with small grains is that the home commercialization levels vary from 0% to 100%, processing for small grains is intensive as this study used the intensity of COMPS. compared to maize. The household’s economic Different households use different ways to access and reception of salary in cash (not handle the problem of food insecurity and this receiving foods or goods as a payment) in drought depends on factors such as demographic years are among the important factors in improving characteristics of the households and other household food security. community variables. Many factors in a household A study in Zambia indicated that income, interact to determine the household food security, education, younger age, and gender of the sometimes households can have more income, but household head (male-headed) were in favour of how the income is used depends on the desire to household food security. The study applied a buy nutritious food (Carletto et al., 2017). The logit model and measured household food economic security of a household is also an security using meal frequencies (Bulawayo et important factor as it determines the availability of al., 2019). Household income was considered as income and safety nets of a household to afford an indicator of the households’ economic status, food (Hendriks, 2015). An Ethiopian study which was found to improve the households’ revealed that household size negatively influenced access to food. Education increased the human household