Gender Role in Agriculture, Climate Change and Food Security in the Sahel Belt of West Africa: Application of Poisson and Negative Binomial Regression

Citation:

Oyekale, Abayomi S. 2013. “Gender Role in Agriculture, Climate Change and Food Security in the Sahel Belt of West Africa: Application of Poisson and Negative Binomial Regression.” Gender & Behavior 11 (2): 5499-511.

Author: Abayomi S. Oyekale

Abstract:

The Sahel belt of West Africa is high vulnerability to poverty and hunger, especially during periods of drought and other climatic adversities. This paper analyzed the impacts of gender role in agriculture and climate change exposure on monthly food shortages. The data were collected by the the Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) from 281 farmers from Burkina Faso and Mali using multi-stage sampling procedures. Descriptive statistics, Poisson regression and Negative Binomial regression were used for data analysis. The results show that average food cropland owned were 9.0227 and 2.8266 hectares in Mali and Burkina Faso respectively while 58.87 percent and 24.29 percent of the farmers indicated that men did most of the works in raw food production. Also, 24.11 percent and 43.57 percent of the households noticed more erratic rainfall in Mali and Burkina Faso, respectively, while 16.31 percent and 36.43 percent reported less overall rainfall. The regression results showed that owned grazing land, more frequent flood, reduction in ground water level, men dominances in cash crop production, fruit production and vegetable production significantly increased the log of months with shortage due to cash (p<0.10), while community grazing land, more overall rainfall, household size, business cash income, men dominances in fodder and large livestock production significantly reduced it (p<0.10). It was concluded that recognition of the contributions of women to food production in the Sahel can facilitate a process for understanding and devising livelihood strategies to mitigate the impacts of climate change. 

Keywords: food security, Poisson regression, Negative binomial regression, Sahel belt, West Africa

Topics: Agriculture, Economies, Poverty, Environment, Climate Change, Environmental Disasters, Gender, Gender Roles, Livelihoods, Security, Food Security Regions: Africa, West Africa Countries: Burkina Faso, Mali

Year: 2013

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