Abstract

During 2008, many of sub-saharan African economies have been obliged to suspend their imports tariffs due to the magnitude of the food crisis. Frequent riots experienced in several cities have then raised the deep issue of food security. The purpose of this paper is to identify for the case of Senegal the major causes of food insecurity among rural households which are more affected, in particular farmers. An ordered multinomial model based on the Senegalese household data (Esam I) is used to identify the most influential probable causes of food insecurity among farmers. The results showed that the probability of food insecurity among all farmers is significantly diminished for farmers who have access to agricultural and pastoral goods for self-sufficient needs. Access to transfers hardly reduces also the probability of food insecurity for all of them. Income diversification factors like earnings from livestock reduce significantly food insecurity risks among small and larger farmers. Gender for small farmers and age for medium farmers seems also to be significant factors. Household size and its agro-ecological area of residence play a key role in the issue at hand for all farmers. Policymakers must then set some mechanism which will sustain farmers so that they can receive their part of overall increasing economic growth benefits. In particular, by trying to understand their specific agro-ecological conditions, they can identify which of the key programs to address.

Key words: Food security, poverty, multinomial model.