At the time of the survey, the majority of households in the selected areas of Mindanao reported average or above access to food (87%), and 13 percent reported a bad or very bad access to food. Half the households in Maguindanao(50%) said that they had poor access to food, compared to 16 percent in Sultan Kudarat, 12 percent in Lanaodel Norte, and less than 5 percent elsewhere.
The most commonly consumed items during the week prior to the survey were cereals, consumed on average every day of the week, followed by animal products, sugar and vegetables (average of 5 days a week). The cumulative distribution of food item consumption suggest that, on average, households in Maguindanao consume food items less frequently than other households in the survey area.
Figure 31: Food groups consumption by strata
Figure 32: Food groups consumption by settlement status
Comparing across settlement status, currently displaced households and those who returned homeconsumed fewer food items (especially vegetables, animal products and sugar) compared to other households.Their poorer access to food may be due to the limited availability of resources to acquireit and/or their more limited ability to produce or obtain food.
A Food Consumption Score (FCS) was computed to reflect the diversity, frequency, and nutritional value of the food items consumed by the household during the 7-day recall period. Each food group was assigned a standardized weightrepresenting the nutritional importance of the food group.[1] The FCS is the sum across food groups of the product of the frequency by the weight. The resulting FCS is a continuous variable. To facilitate interpretation of the results, two thresholds are used to distinguish consumption level: a FCS of 28 and a FCS of 42. The thresholds define three groups: Poor consumption (FCS ≤28), Borderline Consumption (FCS >28 and ≤42), and Acceptable Consumption (FCS >42).
The cross-tabulation of the consumption of food groups with the FCS shows that cereals are the basis of all diets. Over the recall period, households in the poor consumption group consumed most frequently cereals (on average 6.7 days/week), vegetables (4.1 days), sugar (2.7 days) and tubers (2.5 days). Households in the borderline consumption group had on average a higher consumption of all the food items compared to those with poor food consumption, and most notably, increased consumption of animal products (3.0 days a week). Among households with an acceptable consumption score, consumption of all the food groups continues to increase, and most significantly, the consumption of animal products reaches an average of 6 days a week. The consumptions of milk and pulses are almost exclusively found among individuals with an acceptable FCS.
Figure 33: Food groups consumption by FCS
Four percent of the households in the surveyed area had a poor FCS, and 21 percentcame into the category of borderline FCS. The proportion of households with a borderline FCS was highest in Maguindanao and Lanao del Sur. Similarly, the proportion of households with a poor FCS was highest in Maguindanao (12%). In Maguindanao, over half the population had either a poor (12%) or borderline (44%) FCS. In Lanao del Sur, the percentages were 4 percent and 36 percent, respectively. Differences between strata were statistically significant (Pearson χ2 = 462, 10 df, p<0.01).
Figure 33b: Characteristics of food consumption groups
In addition, a household’s food consumption was found to be associated with settlement status at the bivariate level (Pearson χ2 = 252, 8 df, p<0.01). Over half the households displaced at the time of the survey had either a poor (10%) or borderline FCS (45%). Households who had returned home were also more likely to have a poor (9%) or borderline (34%) FCS compared to others. In comparison, 15 percentof the households who were never displaced, or 20 percent of those who had resettled in a new location had a poor or borderline FCS.
Figure 34: Food consumption groups by settlement status
Other variables were found to be significantly associated with food consumption at the bivariate level:
Table 05b: Asset wealth quintiles
Table 05c: Asset wealth details
Figure 35: Food consumption groups by livelihood profile
A multivariate stepwise (forward) logistic regression was conducted to explore factors associated with food insecurity. The dependent variable was a dichotomized one indicating whether a household had an acceptable FCS, or a poor and borderline FCS. The resulting model had a R2 of 0.44 indicating that the factors in the model explain 44 percent of the variance in FCS. The logistic regression was chosen to facilitate interpretation and the use of adjusted odds ratio.
The results show that, after adjusting for the other variables:
[1] The standardized weights are as follow: Cereals and tubers: 2; Pulses: 2; Vegetables: 1; Fruits: 1; Meat: 4; Milk: 4; Sugar: 0.5; Oil: 0.5. Source: WFP, 2008. Food Consumption Analysis