Abstract—Indigenous Leafy Vegetables (ILVs), despite having a clear potential to improve rural household food and nutritional security, the evidence base for this association still remains poor, missing, mixed and inconsistent. With the emerging interest of linking biodiversity to food security in the face of climate change, there is therefore a need to appraise the ILVs - food and nutrition security nexus. This paper employed descriptive statistics and household food security proxy indices on a sample of 238 randomly selected rural households (ILVs producers and non producers) to appraise the connection between ILVs and household food security. Results reveal significant improved household food security status of producers compared to non producers worth further probing with robust models (Propensity Score Matching) on wider geographical areas.

 

Index Terms—indigenous leafy vegetables, household food security

Cite: A. Mayekiso, A. Taruvinga, and A. Mushunje, "Rural Household Food Security Status among Indigenous Leafy Vegetables Producers and Non Producers: Evidence from Coffee Bay, South Africa," Journal of Advanced Agricultural Technologies, Vol. 4, No. 2, pp. 190-195, June 2017. Doi: 10.18178/joaat.4.2.190-195