Influence of Seasonal On-Farm Diversity on Dietary Diversity: A Case Study of Smallholder Farming Households in Western Kenya

ABSTRACT

This study explored the associations between dietary patterns and farm diversity as well as socioeconomic variables during two seasons in rural Western Kenya. As a mean of two surveys, the average dietary diversity scores (DDS) of households and women were low, implying low household economic access to food and low women’s dietary quality. The Food Consumption Score (FCS) showed that acceptable levels of food consumption were realized over seven consecutive days in the 2014 survey by the majority of households (83%) and women (90%). While there was no strong association between the food scores and seven farm diversity indicators, both food scores were significantly associated with the household’s wealth status, ethnicity of both the household head and the spouse, and the education level of the spouse. For holistic household food and nutrition security approaches, we suggest a shift from a focus on farm production factors to incorporating easily overlooked socioeconomic factors such as household decision-making power and ethnicity.

KEYWORDS:

• Dietary diversity score
• food consumption score
• functional diversity
• rural Kenya
• species richness

Acknowledgments

We are grateful to all the farmers, local administration, and contact persons who participated in this study. Many thanks to Dr. Patricia Daley (University of Oxford, UK) for the insightful discussions and comments on earlier drafts of the manuscript. We also thank Dr. Johannes Herrmann (Justus-Liebig-University, Giessen, Germany) for his invaluable explanations and support when conducting the correlation analyses.

Funding

Our sincere gratitude goes to the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), Germany, and the CGIAR Research Program on Agriculture for Nutrition and Health for funding this study, implemented by Bioversity International, Regional Office for sub-Saharan Africa, Nairobi, Kenya. The Rhodes Trust is also acknowledged for covering some of the field travel costs through the David Frederick Research and Travel Grant, as well as funding the tuition fees of the first author to undertake this study in partial fulfillment for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the University of Oxford.

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Additional information

Funding

Our sincere gratitude goes to the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), Germany, and the CGIAR Research Program on Agriculture for Nutrition and Health for funding this study, implemented by Bioversity International, Regional Office for sub-Saharan Africa, Nairobi, Kenya. The Rhodes Trust is also acknowledged for covering some of the field travel costs through the David Frederick Research and Travel Grant, as well as funding the tuition fees of the first author to undertake this study in partial fulfillment for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the University of Oxford.