Mukwedeya Bright, Mudhara Maxwell
African Centre for Food Security, School of Agricultural, Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Private Bag X01, Scottsville, Pietermaritzburg 3201, South Africa.
Discipline of Agricultural Economics, School of Agricultural, Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Private Bag X01, Scottsville 3209, Pietermaritzburg, South Africa.
Heliyon. 2023 Mar 22;9(4):e14735. doi: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2023.e14735. eCollection 2023 Apr.
Several governments and development practitioners view youths as critical to the strategy of enhancing food and nutrition security and sustainable livelihoods in rural Africa. Despite youths being at the centre of food and nutrition security, their contribution to household food security remains understudied. The lack of such evidence has made it difficult to develop and implement effective and sustainable solutions to food insecurity and poverty in rural Africa. Thus, the study examines the factors influencing livelihood strategy choice and food security among youths in three districts of Mashonaland East Province, Zimbabwe. A total sample of 200 randomly selected youths was analysed using both descriptive and inferential statistics. The results show that agriculture was the main livelihood strategy followed by remittance dependant, self-employment, migration, and cross-border trading. In terms of remuneration, cross-border trading was found to be the most remunerative livelihood strategy followed by remittance dependant, self-employment, migration, and agriculture. The youths associated their choice of livelihood strategy with factors such as gender, age, land ownership, access to the internet, social group membership, access to credit and level of education. The study also finds food insecurity, notably severe food insecurity to be a general characteristic among the respondents. The nature of the livelihood strategy of the youths, their socioeconomic characteristics and livelihood capital were found to significantly influence household food security. The study recommends that the government implements strategies to make agriculture a sustainable livelihood option and policies to support youth in the non-farm sector should be a priority.
一些政府和发展从业者认为，青年对于加强非洲农村地区粮食和营养安全以及可持续生计的战略至关重要。尽管青年处于粮食和营养安全的核心位置，但他们对家庭粮食安全的贡献仍未得到充分研究。缺乏此类证据使得难以制定和实施有效的可持续解决方案，以应对非洲农村地区的粮食不安全和贫困问题。因此，本研究考察了津巴布韦东马绍纳兰省三个地区青年的生计战略选择和粮食安全的影响因素。使用描述性统计和推断性统计对总共200名随机抽取的青年样本进行了分析。结果表明，农业是主要的生计战略，其次是依赖汇款、自主创业、移民和跨境贸易。在报酬方面，跨境贸易被发现是最赚钱的生计战略，其次是依赖汇款、自主创业、移民和农业。青年将他们的生计战略选择与性别、年龄、土地所有权、互联网接入、社会群体成员身份、信贷获取和教育水平等因素联系起来。研究还发现，粮食不安全，尤其是严重粮食不安全是受访者的普遍特征。青年的生计战略性质、他们的社会经济特征和生计资本被发现对家庭粮食安全有重大影响。该研究建议政府实施战略，使农业成为可持续的生计选择，支持青年从事非农部门的政策应成为优先事项。
