Food insecurity among female farmers in rural West Sleman, Indonesia

Abstract

Background: Farmers, especially females, face the risk of food insecurity for their families. It would be interesting to examine the efforts made by female farmers who experience food insecurity due to the indirect impacts of COVID-19. This study aims to determine how female farmers deal with food insecurity risks in West Sleman. Data on food insecurity experiences are processed with Winstep software and the Rasch model. Ordinal logistic regression analysis calculates the probability of food insecurity for female farmers depending on their traits and the mitigation strategies they adopt. Results: The findings of this research show that agricultural laborers (42.3%) are the most numerous type of female farmer, followed by land-owning farmers (40.4%) and land-tenants farmers (17.3%). Although more than 50% of the three types of farmers are food secure, laborers have a higher percentage of moderate-to-severe food insecurity (23%) than land owners (14%) and land tenants (11%). Factors that influence the occurrence of food insecurity are not using the home yard, which is physically accessible to grow food, having an agricultural income of less than IDR 500 thousand, and a house asset value of less than IDR 100 million. Conclusions: Coping strategies for mitigating the risk of food insecurity start from within the family by prioritizing food spending, living frugally, growing food crops in your yard, committing full-time to farming, and avoiding dependence on government assistance. Then, optimizing and strengthening the community.