Dietary diversity and gender food consumption gap among farm households in Kapchorwa District

Abstract

In Uganda, consumption of diverse diets is low whereby only 17% of households consume diverse diets. Women across seasons consume less than the five daily recommended food groups. Limited food consumption within and across food groups results in deviation of food consumed from the minimum daily recommended by both men and women thereby creating a gender food consumption gap. The study examined dietary diversity and the gender consumption gap among smallholder farm households in Kapchorwa district, located in Uganda. The study set out to; (1) establish dietary diversity. (2) To examine factors that influence the choice of diverse diets. (3) To determine factors that influence the gender food consumption gap. The study used cross-sectional primary data from 209 randomly selected smallholder farm households. Dietary diversity was measured across and within households. The former was measured using Household dietary diversity scores while the latter used Minimum dietary diversity for women and Individual dietary diversity scores for men. The ordered probit model was used to analyze factors that influence the choice of diverse diets, and the Blinder-Oaxaca model was used to analyze the determinants of the gender consumption gap. Across households, smallholder farm households consumed a mean of 7 food groups per day. Food consumption within smallholder farm households was five for women and four food groups for men implying that women consume a more diverse diet than men a day. Ordered probit regression results revealed that household size and average monthly household income increase the likelihood that smallholder farm households consume diverse diets. The household head is married, distance to the nearest market and food decisions are made by both man and woman but the man has a final say in reducing the probability that smallholder farm households consume diverse diets. Blinder Oaxaca model results indicated that there exists a nutrient-dense food consumption difference between men and women although, the difference is not significant (P-value =0.203). The existing gender nutrient-dense food consumption gap is widened by the endowment effect and coefficient effects. However, the magnitude of the endowment effect on the gender nutrient-dense food consumption gap is higher (67.9%) than the coefficient effect (51.8%). Nonetheless, the proportion of total food consumed that is purchased (P < 0.05) narrows while access to credit (P< 0.01) and presence of children below five years in a household (P< 0.1) narrows whereas the proportion of total food consumed a day that is produced at home (P< 0.05) widens nutrient-dense food consumption difference between actual and recommended per capita intake among women. Therefore, the study recommends Development agencies, the private sector and the government should promote; diverse crop production to close the nutrient-dense food consumption gap among women and between recommended and actual nutrient-dense food consumption, diverse income-generating strategies among farm households to close the nutrient-food consumption gap among men and establish of food markets to increase accessibility to a variety of food hence improved diets.