Relationship between Income-poverty and Food insecurity in Rural Far-western Mid-hills of Nepal

For the purpose of this study, sample was selected through stratified random sampling from Baitadi district, which falls in rural Far-western Hills of Nepal. Both income and consumption measures of poverty revealed that problem of poverty is more severe in Melauli, which is relatively remote village devoid of transportation, communication, market, and other developmental services. Education, occupation, gender of household head, and family size are found to be the most important factors that affect income-poverty as well as consumption-poverty (food insecurity). Caste and landholding size has a significant effect on food insecurity. Households with illiterate head, head engaged in laboring, female-head, larger family size, Occupational Caste household, and small holding are suffering from both income-poverty and consumption-poverty in greater extent. Income-poverty measure shows the higher incidence, gap, and severity of poverty compared to food insecurity for all the variables considered for the study. This could be due to inclusion of non-food expenses while constructing poverty line, and is also due nature of consumption itself, which is relatively continuous compared to income. However, in Melauli, incidence, depth, and severity of both poverty measures are closer. This is due to shortcoming of income-poverty measure to take spatial factor into account. Therefore, adoption of poverty line for whole region i.e., Rural Western Hills could mislead in understanding the issues of poverty. Thus, consumption-poverty is very relevant in the case where construction of location specific income-poverty line demands extra cost and efforts. This can further be justified by significantly higher chance of non-poor, in terms of income-poverty, being food insecure, and lower chance of income-poor being food-secure in Melauli compared to Patan.