Unveiling Food Insecurity Status of Cattle Farm Household Living Adjacent to Teak Forest Region in East Java, Indonesia: A Preliminary Study

Abstract

This preliminary study investigates the food insecurity status and livelihood strategies of cattle farming households living in the buffer zones of Bojonegoroa s teak forests, East Java, Indonesia. A total of 100 respondents were surveyed to analyze household resilience in sustaining food security under socio-economic and ecological pressures. The Food Insecurity Experience Scale (FIES) was employed to classify households into four categories: food secure, mildly food insecure, moderately food insecure, and severely food insecure. The results show that food security status varies across households, reflecting differences in resource access, income diversification, and coping mechanisms. Strategies adopted include diversifying livelihoods, restructuring labor roles, and engaging with local institutions to strengthen adaptive capacity. The key coping mechanism involves storing agricultural produce for food consumption and maintaining livestock as a form of savings, which enables households to meet their food needs during periods of uncertainty. Based on these findings, the study recommends the establishment of programs or policies that operate comprehensively in agricultural and livestock extension, integrating food storage training, the provision of microloans, as well as initiatives to enhance the capacity of women and youth in agricultural and livestock activities and forest resource utilization by strengthening local farmer groups and cooperative networks to improve market access and collective savings mechanisms. The findings contribute to a deeper understanding of household-level resilience and provide insights for policy formulation and development interventions that are ecologically grounded, socially inclusive, and contextually relevant within forest-livestock-Agriculture interface communities.