Food Insecurity and Malnutrition in Rural Tanzania: Mapping Perceptions for Social Learning

ABSTRACT

In Tanzania, a high level of hunger persists. Several factors compound a complex scenario of food insecurity. Contextual aspects at the community level can influence the maintenance of the vulnerable local conditions. This article aims to better understand these aspects by investigating community problem perceptions in n = 04 remote rural villages in Tanzania. Furthermore, how to include community perceptions as a pedagogical element of food security projects is discussed. The methodology consists of three steps: preparatory exploration; household survey (n = 663); and pedagogical workshops (n = 270). The main results indicate that inhabitants of the four villages identify and describe their problems differently. We discovered food insecurity’s hidden factors. Community problem perceptions and local knowledge play fundamental roles in critical food security, despite the environmental conditions’ effect (lack of infrastructure, water scarcity). The pedagogical process of Codification and Decoding of hunger situations can generate more effective educational programs for social learning.

KEYWORDS:

• Sustainability goals
• food security
• social learning
• problem perceptions

Acknowledgments

This article was conducted under the Scale-N project, that aims to improve the nutritional status of Tanzania’s poor regions and it aims to safeguard food and nutrition security by supporting the development of diversified and sustainable agriculture.

Disclosure statement

We have no known conflict of interest to disclose.

Notes

1. Children/mother pairs were included in anthropometric measures of nutritional status of the local population. A nutritional status survey was conducted in parallel to this study.

Additional information

Funding

This research was funded by Scale-N project (2016–2018) under the German Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture (BMEL), based on the decision of the Parliament of the Federal Republic of Germany.