Determinants of food insecurity in Kenya: household dietary diversity approach

Food insecurity is a leading health and nutrition issue for decades, especially in developing countries. Despite the good policies implemented by the national and county government to improve food security status among smallholder farming households, food insecurity is still a challenge in many parts of the country. Thus, the current paper sought to establish the determinants of food security among households in Kenya. Using panel data from the Kenya Covid-19 Rapid Response Phone Survey, the Random effects Generalized ordered Probit model was employed to analyze the factors affecting food security using the household dietary diversity. Analytically, the age of the household and the two region dummy variables, central and western, did not violate the parallel line assumptions. The three variables revealed the unobserved heterogeneity in the dependent variable. A household being in the central region increased the probability of a household falling into the low dietary diversity (LDD) and medium dietary diversity (MDD) levels by 1.9% (p<0.10) and 2.9% (p<0.01) compared to households from other regions in Kenya. Also, a household living in the western region has a higher probability of being in the low dietary diversity (LDD and medium dietary diversity (MDD) levels by 3.1% (p<0.01) and 2.1% (p<0.01). However, being a year older increases the probability of being in the high dietary diversity (HDD) level by 0.1 % (p<0.01). Summarily, internet access, mobile phone ownership, and gender had a significant effect across various levels of household dietary diversity. Thus, policy should be tailored to capture region-specific agroecological conditions while households should be encouraged to diversify differently in the crop and livestock production activities as a risk management strategy and as an adaptation strategy against climate change. Moreover, government to strengthen internet and electricity infrastructure and at the same time reinforce education on nutritionally healthy living lifestyles across different age cohorts.