A Rapid Rural Appraisal of Household Food Security and Nutrition in Four Villages in Luapula Valley, Zambia, in June 1992

This report describes the work of two multi-disciplinary teams during June 1992 in Zambia who attempted to find solutions to malnutrition and vitamin A deficiency in the Luapula Valley. As well as identifying diet and food production patterns, the RRA exercise intended to find out more about the views of the local people and the constraints they faced. A variety of RRA techniques were used including semi-structured interviews and wealth ranking, and these showed that poorer groups, particularly female-headed households were more likely to experience food shortages during the year. It was also discovered that women tended to dominate subsistence farming activities, while men were more likely to be the providers of a cash income. A number of recommendations are made to improve household food security, and it is suggested that community-based nutritional surveillance would raise local awareness about malnutrition and its underlying causes.