Food Security and Vulnerability in Malian's Household

Food security and vulnerability in Malians households

AG IKNANE A

Introduction: Malians, like other Sahelian people, live in a situation of chronic food insecurity. They are also prone to cyclical and recurrent food crisis due to climatic hazards.

Objective: To study the consumption patterns and establish the food security profile of Malian’s households.

Material and methods: This study was conducted in June 2007. It involved 5510 women of childbearing age and 7293 children under 5 years, selected from 3180 households in 212 villages across the nation by stratified cluster sampling. Initially, 30 sentinel sites were set up, but the need to extend them throughout the country became obvious. The entire country was then divided into twelve areas based on the most common life styles using socio-economic and geophysics variables. The principal component analysis technique was used to classify foods based on the three dimensions of food security.

Results: Food intake was poor for 11% of households, limited for 17% and acceptable for 72%. The proportion of households with poor food consumption was highest in Kidal (41% of households affected) and lowest in Sikasso (8%) and Koulikoro (7%).  Bamako had the best profile with 98% of household consumption acceptable. According to way of life, 50% of households living in the cluster of depending on low season cultures had the most difficult food situation, followed by agro-onion (32%) and pastoralists (29%). The areas with the highest level of consumption were the rice-irrigated area (Office du Niger), wage-earning-trade (cities) and the agro-migration.

Conclusion: Many Malian households are food insecure. A sharp disparity in food consumption was found between the Northern regions where poor food consumption was higher and the Southern regions. Similarly, people’s way of life appeared to be associated with food insecurity in this setting.  

Keywords: Food security, vulnerability, food consumption.