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This paper aims to discuss the determinants of food security in Kassala state using the measurement of Household Food Insecurity Access Scale (HFIAS). We use the measurement of HFIAS and use new primary data from a food security household survey in Kassala state (2019).

This paper focuses on the determinants of food security in Kassala state using the measurement of Household Food Insecurity Access Scale (HFIAS), using new primary data from a food security household survey in Kassala state (2019) and using the multinomial logistic regression analysis and both ordered logit and ordered probit regression to examine the determinants of food security.

Our results are in support of our hypothesis that the significant determinants of household food insecurity are family-owned production (that negatively affects the probabilities of household being food insecure), household income (that negatively affects HFIAS). We observe that the effects of family-owned production on household food insecurity are particularly significant in the case of mildly and moderately food insecurity. We explain that the other factors that affect the household food insecurity include improvement in the level of agricultural services, marketing, banking services and road characteristics that reduce HFIAS. We find a gender gap related to food security in the sense that male-headed households produce more food compared to female-headed households and also families headed by males are more likely food secure. Therefore, the major policy implication from our results is the importance of increasing households income and enhancing family own production of food to eliminate food insecurity.

This paper provides a significant contribution to the Sudanese and international literature because it discusses the determinants of food security in Kassala state. Different from the two other accompanying papers that focused on the incidence of food security in Kassala state using the measurement of Household Food Insecurity Access Scale (HFIAS) and the determinants of production of food and consumption of food in Kassala state, this paper focuses on the determinants of food security in Kassala state using the measurement of HFIAS and using new primary data from a food security household survey in Kassala state (2019). We fill the gap in the Sudanese literature because we provide a more interesting analysis of the determinants of food security in Kassala state. Our analysis is useful from policy perspective since we provide useful policy recommendations to enhance food security through agricultural development in Kassala state.

Different from the previous studies in the Sudanese literature, this study aims to examine the incidence and of food security, the variation in households' food insecurity between localities and the adaptation and survival strategy in Kassala State as a case study of Eastern Sudan.

This paper uses the measurement of Household Food Insecurity Access Scale (HFIAS) and uses new primary data from a Food Security Household Survey in Kassala State (2019) and uses the descriptive analysis to discuss the measurement of HFIAS, the incidence of food security, the variation in households' food insecurity between localities and the adaptation and survival strategy in Kassala State.

The authors find that the majority of household (77%) are food-insecure of various degrees, with 32.9% being severely food-insecure, while some households are food-secure (23%). The authors find support for their hypothesis that there will be variation in households' food insecurity between localities that most probably relate to variation in the distribution of monthly income between localities. In particular, the authors find that most households in rural areas are severely food-insecure.

This paper provides a significant contribution to the Sudanese and international literature because it discusses the incidence of food insecurity in Sudan. Different from the two other accompanying papers that focused on the determinants of food security in Kassala State using the measurement of HFIAS and determinants of production of food and consumption of food in Kassala State, this paper focuses on the incidence of food security in Kassala State using the measurement of HFIAS.

The purpose of this study is to examine household food gap and food insecurity in Eastern Ethiopia. Differences in food gap and food insecurity were also examined in terms of gender of the household head and location.

A combination of quantitative and qualitative methods such as household survey, key informant interview and focused group discussion were utilized for this study. Households were drawn randomly from the study area.

In terms of food availability, more than half of the households experienced a food gap during the year, especially during the months of July and August. In terms of gender, female-headed households had more months of food shortage compared to their male counterparts. This disparity was also reflected in poorer food access among female-headed households as shown by the higher HFIAS. Differences in food insecurity were obtained in terms of gender of the household head and location. Livestock ownership, cereal crop production, extension contact and household size significantly influenced household food access.

Findings are valid only for low-land agroecologies

This study contributes to the existing literature by examining household food gap and food insecurity using a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods. It adds value in examining disparities between male-headed and female-headed households. Literature related to seasonal household food insecurity is limited in Ethiopia. This study contributes in this regard by examining seasonal food insecurity between post-harvest and pre-harvest seasons.

The purpose of this paper is to understand the impact of participation in sustainable agricultural intensification practices (SAIPs) on household food security status in Northwestern Ghana.

The study utilised the Household Food Insecurity Access Scale (HFIAS) indicator for the measurement of food access data from 168 households in ten communities from the Northwestern region of Ghana for the analyses. Households were categorised into participating households (treatment) and non-participating households (control). The endogenous treatment effects model was employed to evaluate the impact of participation in SAIPs training on food insecurity access scale.

The results show that participation in SAIPs training lowers, on average, the household food insecurity access by 2.95 points, approximately an 11 per cent reduction in HFIAS score. Other significant factors found to influence household food insecurity access scale are age of household head, experience in farming, total acres owned by household, income level of the household and occupation of the head of the household.

The training programme of participation in SAIPs has massive implications for food security, rural economy and farmers’ livelihoods. However, due to the unique conditions prevailing in Northwestern Ghana, the findings of this research are limited in terms of their generalisability. Future research direction in the area of SAIPs trainings and impact study replications in all qualifying rural food production areas in Ghana, which are susceptible to household food insecurity, will provide a national picture of the efficacy of SAIPs trainings on household food insecurity.

A proven means to decrease natural resource degradation, increase crops yields, and increase subsistence farmers’ income, and food security is an important intervention to resolve the seasonal food shortage, which last for five months in a typical year for agro-food-dependent farming communities in Northwestern Ghana.

Ensuring household food security improvement and environmental sustainability will help improve living standards of food producers and reduce the adverse social challenges associated with food insecure communities such as health problems due to food deficiencies, social inequalities, environmental pollution and natural resource degradation in Northwestern Ghana.

The contribution of this paper is the novel thought and approach to examine the impact of the SAIPs trainings on household food security in Northwestern Ghana using the household food insecurity access scale indicator. The study also examined the factors that affect household food security using the endogenous treatment model, which also evaluates the impact of the training programme on the outcome variable.

The central dry zone of Myanmar is a climatic risk area in which the inhabitants are experiencing food insecurity, demonstrating the link between water scarcity and climate risk in agricultural production. Households in the region face the challenge of developing adaptation strategies to cope with the impact of climate change on food security. This study aims to seek an effective climate change solution and analyse its impact on Myanmar's food security and household adaptation.

The authors draw on insights from mixed-method research using a qualitative method followed by quantitative methods. In the qualitative phase, the authors used purposive sampling with two focus group discussions and three stakeholder interviews. In the quantitative phase, data were collected from 102 face-to-face interviews with members of households selected from Pauk Township, Pakokku District, Magway Region, Myanmar. The household food insecurity access scale (HFIAS) was used in the analysis.

The HFIAS indicated that 13% of households have adapted to climate change. The study illustrates that climate change adaptation strategies in production activities are related to food insecurity. The results further demonstrated the effect of climate change on crops, which impacts debt, access to food, selling assets and urban migration. The findings also suggest that climate change adaptation to improve food security has played an important role in providing outside support, which leads to household food insecurity.

To the authors' best knowledge, the study is one of the first to use mixed-method research to investigate climate change, food security and household adaptation in the central dry zone of Myanmar.

The paper aims to examine fall armyworm's (FAW) effect on Ghana's farming households' income and food security status.

A sample of 225 farmers, including FAW-infested households and non-FAW-infested households, were interviewed. Gross margin (GM) analysis was used to estimate farmers' farm revenues, and the Household Food Insecurity Access Scores (HFIAS) was employed to measure the food security status of the households. The seemingly unrelated regression (SUR) was adopted to investigate the effect of FAW infestation on gross income and food security.

From the study, FAW attack is predominant during the vegetative stage of the maize plant. The empirical results revealed that FAW-infested farms incur loss, whereas non-FAW-infested farmers gained profit. Also, FAW-infested households were mildly food insecure, while non-FAW-infested households were food secured. The results of SUR analysis reveal that FAW infestation decreased farmers' income from maize production and rendered them food insecure.

One limitation of this study is that it largely depended on a survey; however, future studies can combine both survey and experimental data from the farmers' fields during minor and major growing seasons of maize.

Given the negative consequences of FAW, studies have been conducted across Africa and globally. However, most of these studies concentrated on using geographic information system (GIS) and descriptive statistics without necessarily quantifying the effect of FAW on food security and the profit margins of farming households. Therefore, this study adds to the little literature on the effect of FAW on food security and GM from maize production, which has received less attention in Ghana to the authors' best knowledge.

The study attempted to assess the food security status of urban agriculture households in Ghana and India. Also, the extent of urban agriculture participation and its effect on food security in Ghana and India were examined.

A total of 650 urban agriculture farmers were interviewed for this study in Ghana and India. Food security status of urban households was assessed by the use of the Household Food Insecurity Access Scale, whereas the determinants of the extent of urban agriculture and its effect on food security were analysed by the use of the heteroskedastic linear regression and the Seemingly Unrelated Regression models, respectively.

From the study on average, households in Ghana were mildly food insecure, but that of India was moderately food insecure. The results further revealed that various demographic, economic, institutional and health and nutrition factors differently influenced urban food security and urban agriculture. Also, the extent of urban agriculture participation positively influenced food security.

Several studies in Asia (India) and Africa (Ghana) on urban food security have been geographically limited to New Delhi, Mumbai and Greater Accra, with few studies in the Middle Belt of Ghana, and Bihar in India. Besides, there is a limited, rigorous, empirical study on the effect of the extent of UA on food security in Asia (India) and Africa (Ghana) individually and together. Moreover, we extend the frontiers of the methodological approach by applying the Seemingly Unrelated Regression (SUR) model to understand if the factors that affect food-security accessibility based on two food security accessibility tools are correlated.

This study aims to investigate the food choice motivations of rural households using a cross-sectional dataset of 510 households from northwest Vietnam interviewed in 2016.

A modified Food Choice Questionnaire (FCQ) is used to assess factors related to food choice and explore relationships between food choice factors, diet quality and various sociodemographic characteristics.

Results show four distinct food choice factors: “Natural and healthy,” “Familiarity,” “Balanced diet” and “Convenience.” Two distinct consumer clusters are identified: “Health-conscious” households and “Pragmatic” households. “Health-conscious” households rank “Balanced diet” and “Natural and healthy” highly, while “Pragmatic” households prioritize “Convenience” and “Familiarity.” “Health-conscious” households have significantly more diverse diets, are wealthier and have a greater geographic concentration in the high vegetable density per capita-high elevation areas (36%). Their main food preparers are more educated and about 13% have Kinh ethnicity.

Further research is warranted to explore the temporal dimension of parental food choice motivations given the changing agrifood system in Vietnam.

This study is one of the few studies that assess the food choice motivations among ethnic minority groups in a rural setting.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the factors influencing the food insecurity status of the working poor households in south west Nigeria.

International Labour Organisation poverty line, Household Food Insecurity Access Scale as well as the Ordered Logit model were used to identify the factors influencing the food insecurity status of the working poor households in south west Nigeria.

The study revealed that more than half of the respondents were working poor households, with more than four-fifths of them being food insecure. Income irregularity, savings and level of education had major roles to play in the food insecurity status of working poor households.

Employment has always been considered as a route out of poverty and food insecurity. However, the intensity of poverty among working households should be considered in the design and development of policy and programmes, targeted towards workers. Laws should protect the right of workers against non-payment of salaries, advantages of family planning should be emphasised, social security allowance should be provided to serve as an alternative source of income during emergencies and more investment made in education.

This paper attempts to bridge the knowledge gap in the empirical link between employment, poverty and food insecurity. Particularly, its application to the working households.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-09-2019-0589

In order to improve access to resources for smallholder farmers, efforts are being made to promote contract farming in Ghana. This is seen as a strategy to increase agricultural productivity of farmers, give better market access and guarantee adequate supply of raw materials to agro-based industries. However, the challenge is whether contract farming leads to improvement in food security status of farmers. The study therefore seeks to explore to what extent farmers' food security status is influenced by their participation in contract farming activities.

Using Cragg's double-hurdle model to analyse participation in contract farming, the authors control for selection bias using propensity score matching applied to a data set of 336 observations to examine the impact of contract farming on the food security levels of rice farmers in Ghana.

The results of this study show that yield of paddy and the wealth of the farmer are the main factors that influence the quantity of paddy rice to be contracted in contract farming arrangements. This study also finds that participation in contract farming will increase food security by 109%. In conclusion, contract farming has a significant positive impact on the farmers' food security status.

Agricultural policies and rural development initiatives supporting the promotion and expansion of contract farming should be pursued to persuade more farmers to produce under contract farming agreements.