Climatic changes and household food availability in Malaysian east coast economic region

Sustainable food security at household level is one of the emerging issues for all nations. There are several factors such as social, economic, political, demographic, natural, and livelihood strategies that causes to the vulnerability of the status of household food security. Therefore examining the vulnerability of these factors is essential to identify the reason and recognize the most vulnerable communities. This study is an attempt to study on the vulnerability of the factors of household food availability and its linkage with climatic changes in Malaysia. The study is based on primary data collected in the months of July – October, 2012 through a questionnaire survey on 460 low income households from East Coast Economic Region (ECER) in Malaysia. The samples were selected from E-Kasih poor household database, based on cluster random sampling technique. The study found that the vulnerability of the factors of household food availability has decreased statistically significantly over the last five years period in Malaysia for the factors of effectiveness of food distribution process, road and transportation facility for food distribution process, availability of expected food in the local market, sufficiency of expected food in the local market, and stability of food supply in market. The mean values of the current status of the factors of household food availability differ significantly at 1% significance level from the scenario of 5 years ago. However, most of the cases climatic issues were found less responsible for the changes of these factors. Though Malaysia is adversely affected by climatic change, the factors of food availability are not affected yet remarkably. This study suggests that the food security programs need to be integrated with climatic change adaptation programs to ensure more effective and sustainable household food security in future, especially among the poor and low income group. Moreover, a proper monitoring agency is required to ensure consistent supply of food in the rural and remote areas, especially at the time of natural calamity or off season.