Crop diversification and household food security status: evidence from rural Benin

The government of Benin has initiated since 2006 many policies to promote crop diversification. The aim was to help rural household to be more resilient to food insecurity. The objective of this research is to determine how crop diversification has affected the food security status of the rural household. Primary data from 420 rural households were collected in the Collines Region in Benin. We use principal component analysis (PCA) to construct a multidimensional food security indices and a Simpson diversity index has been used to measure the degree of crop diversification. A linear regression model was used to determine the effect of crop diversification on household food security status. We found that crop diversification has a positive effect on household food security status. The diversity of crops grown through dietary diversity can improve household food security. In rural remote areas where household access to food depends largely on it production, crop diversification provides farmers with the different crops that they cannot access either because of the cost or because of the poor infrastructure constraints (physical access). Beyond, the results also show that some other factors are also affecting the household food security status such as access to extension services and storage facilities.