Factors influencing household food security in the tea zone of Kirinyaga County Kenya

Abstract

Individuals are deemed to be food secure if they have access to dietary balanced feeding preferences. Globally, there are at least 805 million with limited access to food. In some countries at least 75% of infants have no access to food. In Africa there is a positive growth of chronically hungry households. Poverty and food shortage have been attributed to it. In Kenya, there is a question on whether continuous land subdivision may guarantee food security. In Kirinyaga County, smallholders’ tea farming has gained prominence where majority has convened into tea mono-cropping, a trend that may injure household food security. The purpose of the study was to investigate the influence of land size, tea mono-cropping and access to credit by smallholder tea farmers on household food security in the tea zone of Kirinyaga County, Kenya. The study adopted a descriptive design with the target population as the smallholder tea farmers. The accessible population consisted of 42,318 registered smallholder farmers. The sample size was l 10 respondents selected through multistage sampling. Data collection was done using structured questionnaires. Validity was evaluated through seeking of opinion from supervisors from department of Applied Community Development Studies Department and experts in Ministry of Agriculture. A Pilot study was done in Gacharage tea factory in Muranga County. The factory was selected to minimize the chances of prior access of the research instrument by the target respondents. Reliability was estimated through use of Cronbach Alpha coefficients. The Cronbach’s alpha coefficients for credit access, land size, tea mono-cropping was 0.7362, 0.8169 and 0.7463 respectively. Prior to data collection research permit was sought from National Commission of Science and Technology and department of agriculture in Kirinyaga County. Data Was collected using self-administered questionnaires, after which SPSS Version 24 was used for analysis. Descriptive statistics such as mean, standard deviation, frequency and percentages and inferential statistics such as Chi square were used for data analysis. Land size, tea mono-cropping and access to credit had statistically significant influence on household food security (p = 0.004; p:0.000 and p:0.002) respectively. The study concluded that land size and access to credit were important factors in household food security. The study recommended that there is need for development of measures aimed at enhancing food security.