Comprehensive Agricultural Household Food Security Analysis In Poverty-stricken Areas

Food security is a matter of national security and people’s livelihood, debate aboutfood security has never stopped. In2012, China’s grain production had experiencedcontinuous increases in the past nine years. The encouraging situation had been seen ingrain harvests year after year, however, food imports hit a record at the same year, foodsecurity issues become the focus of public once again. In2013, Document No.1was stillmade to ensure the national food security and the effectively supply of major agriculturalproducts. In the case of national macro-level food security, China’s grain production is stilluncoordinated, unbalanced and unsustainable, besides, an upturn in the food securitysituation at national level does not mean that each family or individual is able to achievefood security. There are still food unsecured hazards and vulnerable populations, ruralpopulations in poor regions are the short board of national food security system. Concerningabout basic survival needs of vulnerable groups, household food security in the poor areashelps to guarantee national food security and social harmony, becoming the only way ofbuilding a moderately prosperous society.Based on the practical situation in poverty-stricken areas, the paper is an empiricalanalysis of food security in poor rural areas, combining macro and micro perspectives,using static and dynamic method, aiming to improve the food security situation for thepoverty-stricken rural population. The paper consists of7chapters; chapter1-3is thepremise of this paper: chapter1introduces research background and objectives. Chapter2isbasic theory on household food security in the poverty-stricken areas; Chapter3is thehistory and current food security situation in the poor areas. Chapters4–6are the empiricalanalysis of rural population in the poor areas from different perspectives, macro-perspectiveanalysis of grain consumption in the poor rural areas, influencing factors of poor householdsfrom the micro–perspective, and consuming structure based on food security. Chapter4empirically analyzed the influence of grain production capacity, food access, food availability, consumer psychology and consumer inertia to grain consumption in thepoverty-stricken areas. Chapter5analyzed the influencing factors affecting food securityusing the hierarchical generalized linear model. Chapter6analyzed the householdconsumption structure in poverty-stricken areas, using almost ideal demand model (AIDS)and quadratic almost ideal demand system (QUAIDS). Chapter7concludes the paper withsome policy recommendations.The main conclusions of this study are as follows:Food availability and food access need further improvement in poor rural areas. Theresults showed grain production capacity had a positive impact on food consumption, foodaccess was the key in the transition of "quantity" to “quality ", food availability produced apositive effect on grain consumption. Insufficient food consumption is the rational choice ofbalancing production and consumption for the poverty-stricken rural population; foodconsumption had not improved significantly with the increase of food expenditure.Measures of ensuring food security should be coordinated with the local conditions. Moreattention should be paid to food production in poor areas, the rural population in poverty-stricken areas are more concerned about food self-sufficiency, whether food self-sufficiencynot only can affect their level of food consumption, but also can affect the confidence anddetermination of engaging in other industries, especially in the non-agricultural industries.Therefore, the government should give priority to food production, and then solve theproblem of farmers’ increasing income. On the basis of a stable grain production, thegovernment should create favorable conditions for improving operating income and wage ofrural households.Improving household food security in the poor areas should be executed on overallconsideration. For the households in poverty-stricken areas, of all the village-level elements,traffic conditions played a catalytic role in improving food security; the food securitysituation of village with bus passes by was worse than that without a bus passes by; wherethere was a clinic, the food security situation was better. Among the household level factors,children’s dependency ratio was associated with food security, the families with childrenfood security situation was better; poor families with chronic diseases were food insecure;the higher the level of family income (wealth index), the higher level of food security; moremember living outside, the much higher level of food insecurity at home, pig raising had apositive impact on household food security. Food security in the poverty-stricken areasshould be co-ordinated both the household-level and village-level. The importance ofvillage-level food security was not paid enough attention, the government should focus onthe improvement of primary public investment, dedicated to enhance village-level infrastructure and medical services, and enhance the effectiveness of public goods in ruralareas. The rural retaining population is vulnerable, and the concern for them should bestrengthened. While increasing in total income, the gap between income (wealth) putting anadverse impact on food security should be coordinated. Following the urban-rural gap andregional disparities, the economic gap within village cannot be ignored.Income and prices were also the two main factors affecting the food consumption levelin the poverty-stricken areas, increasing their income and controlling price volatility cansignificantly improve the share of food consumption, and it is beneficial to food security.Controlling the staple food price volatility generates great significance to the protection ofthe lowest level population in the poor areas. The key to improve food security is shift foodconsumption structure from staple food to relatively balanced diet. Household foodproduction in poor areas have a positive impact on rural food security, due to the physicaland economic cost advantage, this advantage in the market mechanism may not be obvious,but it helps to improve the intra-household food consumption structure.