Técnicas de computación utilizadas

The research identified the most vulnerable members in the communities to be the low-income households, often female-headed, in the peri-urban and rural locations. Large households, especially in Dundee, and those who are taking care o f the children, orphaned children and grandchildren, those families with unemployed members and those with low cash-flow and only survive on social grants as well as those who are unwilling to work on their own were also perceived as being vulnerable to good insecurity. It was also noted by FAO (2009) that the rural and urban poor, the landless and female-headed households are the major groups affected by food price increases, which in turn makes them more vulnerable to food insecurity. Women, especially o f reproductive age, as well as children under the age o f five were noted to be at high risk of inadequate intake o f micronutrients due to household food insecurity from low dietary diversity as noted in other studies (De Pee et al., 2000; W hitaker et al., 2006; FAO, 2009; Arimond et al., 2010; Labadarios et al., 2011; WHO, 2012; Harris-Fly et al., 2015). Children under the age o f five could be at greater risk o f micronutrient deficiencies due to factors such as recurrent infections, inadequate sanitation and hygiene, maternal education, and less than optimal infant and young child feeding practices (UNICEF, 1990; Bhutta et al., 2008), consuming low nutrient density foods (Faber, 2005) as well as maternal and antenatal factors (Bhutta et al., 2008).

The study has shown that the lack o f dietary diversity is severely affecting women o f reproductive age from poor households in the towns as was shown by strong positive correlations between

WDDS and wealth as well as food expenditure. Women are more vulnerable because it is often the women’s responsibility to make sure the entire household is fed and in many cases there is uneven control o f resources in the households which makes the experience o f food insecurity to be gender biased (Olson, 2005; Hadley et al., 2008; Sasson, 2012). Studies have also shown that when households experience food insecurity, mothers are more likely reduce to their own intake to secure those o f infants and small children to avoid child malnutrition (Kuku et al., 2011; Saaka and Osman, 2013). This was highlighted in the research where women and households in Dundee had the highest food insecurity levels yet the town had the least stunted and wasted children. Household food insecurity status has also been found to be associated with overweight and obesity among women (Townsend et al., 2001; Kaiser et al., 2004; Wilde and Peterman, 2006; Laraia et al., 2010) which could be due to disordered eating patterns (Laraia et al., 2010) or consumption of cheap processed foods that are high in sugar and fat (Ruel and Garrett, 2004; Faber et al., 2011).

Poor socio-economic status has been confirmed in the study to have an impact on household food insecurity to a larger extent in peri-urban locations as was found by Oldewage-Theron et al. (2006) and Labadarios et al. (2011) in South Africa and Bhattacharya et al. (2004) in United States of America. This is also true for rural locations as is shown in this study by the strong significant correlations between WDDS, food expenditure and wealth in rural Dundee and Harrismith, thus increasing the number o f households living in extreme poverty, especially in Harrismith. Jacobs (2009) and Rudolph et al. (2012) also noted that low-income households are more likely to suffer from food shortages because food expenditure make up a large share o f their spending thereby causing them to be more vulnerable to the impacts o f rising food prices. Low-income, low asset ownership and unemployment also increased the risk o f food insecurity in households in the informal settlements o f Johannesburg (Naicker et al., 2015).

Results from this study has revealed that the peri-urban households have limited access/ entitlements to land which can also make them more vulnerable to food insecurity than both their urban and rural counterparts who had land and or finances. Access to land has been shown to be

positively associated with dietary diversity in this study. Peri-urban dwellers are therefore more sensitive to changes in incomes and food prices than the rural and urban populations because they have limited safety nets to absorb income or price shocks as they purchase more, rather than growing their own food. Therefore, the peri-urban households are more food insecure than rural and urban households although the substantial increases in the dependence on market purchases is affecting both urban and rural households (Baiphethi and Jacobs, 2009).

7.2.6. Coping strategies

W hen faced with food insecurity shocks, vulnerable households adopted a range o f coping strategies to deal with the situation. Due to increases in food prices, most vulnerable households, especially low-income households, would reduce dietary diversity (Brinkman et al., 2010) and households would reduce the consumption o f more expensive food items as well as portions and frequency o f meals (Oldewage-Theron et al., 2006; Brinkman et al., 2010). Poor households may resort to cheap and poor quality diets to cope with poverty and rises in food prices. Some households in these communities prioritise the diets o f small children as they buffer the youngest children from declines in food intake (Saake and Osman, 2013) and some mothers prioritise their children’s food consumption over their own (de Pee et al., 2000). Thus households seek to cope with declines in food availability without sacrificing nutrient adequacy for vulnerable members (Saake and Osman, 2013) which are young children in this case.

Many households perceived that the food parcels, the Child Support Grant and school feeding programmes were also part o f their coping strategies as they were getting food from the government, use the grant money to buy food as well as sending children to school where they receive food. Social grants and the school feeding programme have been noted to have improved food security for many poor households in the country (Thorntorn, 2008; Altman et al., 2009; Labadarios et al., 2011). However, some poor households resort to the use o f wild foods as part of their diet as well as a form o f income generation to alleviate household food insecurity and poverty.

Poor households, especially in Richards Bay, where climatic conditions are conducive for the growth o f natural resources as well as easy access to fishing, use wild food to reduce food insecurity, which is different from Dundee and Harrismith which are drier and inland towns. Wilds foods have been suggested to provide a ‘safety net’ or ‘fall back’ for some households during periods o f food scarcity and uncertainty (Shackleton and Shackleton 2004; Shackleton et al., 2006; Vinceti et al., 2008; Powell et al., 2010; Anorld et al., 2011; Sunderland, 2011; McLain et al., 2014) but they are also widely consumed because o f cultural and taste preferences (Shackleton, 2003; Shackleton et al., 2010).