The contribution of community gardens to food security in the Maphephetheni uplands

Figures & data

Table 1: Households' anxiety and uncertainty about food supply (n = 53)

	Frequency in the past 30 days
	Never	Once or twice	Three to 10 times	More than 10 times	Total
Number who were anxious and uncertain about food supply	6	2	19	26	53

Table 2: Spearman's correlation coefficient between household characteristics and anxiety and uncertainty about food supply (n = 53)

Characteristic	Household anxiety and uncertainty
Household sources of food
Purchases	0.153  (0.274)
Gifts	0.155  (0.268)
In-kind payments	0.323*   (0.018)
Community gardens	0.065  (0.644)
Home gardens	0.065  (0.644)
Household sources of income
Household per capita income	−0.128** (0.359)
Wages	−0.128  (0.359)
Social grants	−0.386** (0.004)
Migrants	−0.254  (0.067)
Household and community garden characteristics
Number of people per household	0.009  (0.001)
Number of people per community garden	0.639** (0.001)
Notes: **Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (two-tailed). *Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (two-tailed) of statistical significance. Numbers in brackets refer to the p values.

Table 3: Households using coping strategies involving poor quality food consumption (n = 53)

Strategy	Frequency in the past 30 days
	Never	Once or twice	Three to 10 times	More than 10 times	Total
Not able to eat preferred foods	3	6	12	32	53
Eating only a limited variety of food	3	7	12	31	53
Having to eat foods that are not preferred	0	8	14	31	53

Table 4: Spearman's correlation coefficient between household characteristics and quality of food consumed (n = 53)

Characteristic	Quality of food consumed by households
	Not able to eat preferred kinds of foods	Eating a limited variety of foods	Eating foods that are not preferred
Household sources of income
Household per capita income	–0.523** (0.001)	–0.538** (0.001)	–0.464** (0.001)
Wages or salaries earned	0.076          (0.589)	0.122          (0.358)	0.230          (0.098)
Social grants	–0.452** (0.001)	–0.523** (0.001)	–0.540** (0.001)
Migrant remittances	–0.459** (0.001)	–0.268          (0.052)	–0.355          (0.009)
Household and community garden characteristics
Number of household members	–0.043          (0.757)	0.096          (0.496)	–0.026          (0.855)
Size of community garden	–0.624** (0.001)	–0.546** (0.001)	–0.674** (0.001)
Number of community garden members	0.542** (0.002)	0.424** (0.002)	0.445** (0.002)
Notes: **Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (two-tailed). *Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (two-tailed) of statistical significance. Numbers in brackets refer to the p values.

Table 5: Coping strategies when food is inadequate (n = 53)

Strategy	Frequency in the last 30 days
	Never	Once or twice	Three to 10 times	More than 10 times	Total
Ate a smaller meal than they needed	9	3	17	24	53
Ate fewer meals in a day	5	5	18	25	53
Experienced total lack of food due to lack of resources	13	15	21	4	53
Went to sleep at night hungry due to lack of food	31	11	9	2	53
Went the whole day and night without eating due to lack of food	37	2	10	4	53

Table 6: Spearman's correlation coefficient between household and community garden characteristics and household behaviour associated with insufficient food consumption (n = 53)

	Household behaviour
	Eating a smaller meal	Eating fewer meals in a day	Experiencing total lack of food due to lack of resources	Going to sleep at night hungry due to lack of food	Going whole day and night without eating anything due to lack of food
Household sources of income
Household per capita income	–0.258** (0.062)	–0.568** (0.001)	–0.010 (0.943)	–0.004 (0.764)	–0.032   (0.818)
Wage or salary	0.233          (0.093)	0.111          (0.430)	–0.005 (0.970)	–0.049 (0.725)	–0.059   (0.625)
Social grant	–0.310          (0.024)	–0.400*   (0.003)	–0.085 (0.543)	–0.041 (0.770)	–0.024   (0.863)
Migrant remittances	–0.224          (0.107)	–0.151          (0.279)	0.088 (0.533)	0.106 (0.449)	0.265   (0.055)
Household and community garden characteristics
Number of people in household	0.210          (0.132)	0.126          (0.368)	0.112 (0.423)	0.193 (0.166)	0.135   (0.334)
Number of community garden members	0.232*   (0.094)	0.368** (0.007)	0.266 (0.054)	–0.049 (0.725)	–0.121   (0.387)
Area of community garden per household (m^2)	–0.370** (0.006)	–0.443** (0.001)	0.060 (0.178)	–0.009 (0.949)	–0.081* (0.566)
Notes: **Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (two-tailed). *Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (two-tailed) of statistical significance. Numbers in brackets refer to the p values.

Table 7: Pearson's correlation coefficients between HFIAS scores and household sources of income and food (n = 53)

	HFIAS score
Sources of household income
Household per capita income	–0.604** (0.001)
Wage or salary earned	0.134          (0.339)
Social grant	–0.526** (0.001)
Migrant remittances	–0.078          (0.578)
Sources of food
Purchases	0.348*   (0.011)
Gifts	0.265          (0.056)
In-kind payments	0.213          (0.126)
Community gardens	–0.054          (0.703)
Home gardens	0.048          (0.733)
Household and community garden characteristics
Number of members in community garden	0.543** (0.001)
Size of community garden (m^2)	–0.594** (0.001)
Number of people in household	0.142          (0.310)
Visit by agricultural extension officer	–0.329*   (0.016)
Notes: *Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (two-tailed). **Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (two-tailed). Numbers in brackets refer to p values.

Table 8: Proportion of households in each food security category (n = 53)

	Food security categories^a
	Food secure	Mildly food insecure	Moderately food insecure	Severely food insecure
Number of household in each category	0	1	4	48
Proportion of households in each category	0%	4%	7%	89%
^a Source: Coates et al. (2006).

Coates , J , Swindale , A and Bilinsky , P . 2006 . “ Household Food Insecurity Access Scale (HFIAS) for measurement of food access: Indicator guide ” . http://www.fantaproject.org/downloads/pdfs/HFIAS%20Guide.pdf Accessed 16 May 2006

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