Determining the Coping Strategies towards Household Food Security Practiced by the Farmers in Flood Prone Areas

Abstract

A study was carried out at each of three flood affected reverine villages of three upazilas (small administrative unit) under Jamalpur district in Bangladesh during September, 2011 to May, 2012 to find out the coping strategies towards household food security practices by the farmers during flood period. Data were collected from randomly selected 336 respondents of 6720 farm families through both the qualitative and quantitative techniques and analyzed with the help of SPSS. A three-point rating scale was used for measuring the coping strategies considering five components such as food preservation, food management, food collection, agricultural products protection and some social aspects. The overall situation about practicing coping strategy had medium to high level where 70.83 percent were practiced high, 29.17 percent medium and none of them were under practiced low coping strategy towards household food security. Based on the above findings, it can be said that still now there is an ample scope for the development workers to work with the flood affected people for creating awareness towards better utilization of existing resources for improving their food situation as well as livelihoods.