Water and Africa 
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| Title: | Seasonal food insecurity and vulnerability in drought-affected regions of Burkina Faso |
| Authors: | Reardon, Thomas Matlon, P. |
| Book title: | Seasonal variability in Third World agriculture: the consequences for food security / ed. by David E. Sahn. - Baltimore, Md. [etc.]: Johns Hopkins University Press |
| Year: | 1989 |
| Pages: | 118-136 |
| Language: | English |
| Geographic term: | Burkina Faso |
| Subjects: | droughts food shortage food seasonality |
| Abstract: | This chapter explores the seasonal incidence and determinants of food insecurity as experienced by farm households in two regions of Burkina Faso (Sahel savanna and Sudano-Sahel) during the recent Sahelian drought of September 1984-December 1985. The objectives are to (1) describe the degree and nature of household consumption deficits in a seasonal framework; (2) determine how such deficits make households vulnerable to unpredictable factors in the market and in access to relief assistance; (3) determine whether these problems affect households equally, or rather are more narrowly concentrated in certain groups with particular wealth and demographic characteristics; and (4) highlight important policy implications of these cross-sectional and intertemporal patterns. The authors identify two categories of seasonally insecure households: those insecure only in a single season, and those chronically insecure during several seasons in the year. They show that the extent of chronic seasonal food insecurity was substantially greater in the Sudano-Sahel village despite the fact that average land productivity was 75 percent higher than in the Sahel village. This underlines the inadequacy of employing yields or the magnitude of rainfall deficits as simple indicators of the potential impact of drought. Notes. |