Rural Households Food Security Status in Tanzania: Empirical Analysis

This study aimed at making a critical analysis of food security status among rural households in Tanzania. A questionnaire was used to collect primary data under multi stages random sampling techniques. Both STATA version 10.1 and SPSS version 15.0 software were used to analyse data. The findings indicated that 61% of the rural households were not food secure whereas 39.0% were food secure in the study area. The education level the household head, age, household size, employment status, electricity, pesticides, tractor and bank account were found to be statistically significantly associated to households` food security status at 5% level of significance when tested using chi-square. The logistic regression model indicated that employment status, electricity, pesticides, tractor, bank account and household size statistically significantly have a power to predict food security status of the household. The households whose members are employed, small household members and use tractors had a positive likelihood of being food secure. The rural households in the study area that use electricity, pesticides and bank account have a negative likelihood of being food secure.