Climate variability and food security in tanzania: Evidence from western bagamoyos

Abstract

Achieving food security in its totality continues to be a challenge not only for the developing nations, but also for the developed world. The difference lies in the magnitude of the problem in terms of its severity and proportion of the population affected. In developed nations the problem is alleviated by providing targeted food security interventions, including food aid in the form of direct food relief, food stamps, or indirectly through subsidized food production. Similar approaches are employed in developing countries but with less success. The discrepancy in the results may be due to insufficient resource base, shorter duration of intervention, or different systems most of which are inherently heterogeneous among other factors. In this study; results of regression model on production entitlement suggest that climate variability has relatively minor effects on food production. It shows moderate positive relationship but not significant; where temperature has more effects than that of rainfall on production. However the difference is statistically insignificant. The relatively minor impact of weather variations on food production, combined with the analysis of other qualitative analysis such as household survey, observation, discussions, participatory techniques and thematic interviews in Western Bagamoyo district, Coast region in Tanzania reveal how extreme climatic events affect rural food security entitlements of production, labor, exchange and trade. It also reveals households adaptation strategies implemented by the communities during droughts/floods which serve as a foundation for planning responses to future climate variability and change. Results of this study suggest that food security in Tanzania where droughts and floods are expected to become more severe due to climate change could be enhanced by adoption of Climate Smart Agriculture (CSA) practises to increase productivity, adaptation and mitigation of Green House gases (GHGs). It was revealed that agriculture as their main source of income contributes 69.7 % of income to household’s food security.