Dietary Diversity for Rural and Urban Households in Tanzania

Abstract

Food Security in terms of food access and nutrition has become paramount in food security discussions. Dietary diversity therefore surfaces as key ingredient to bring and speed the discussion of food access and nutrition. The aim of this study was to analyze the level of dietary diversity for the rural and urban households in Tanzania. Specifically, the study has assessed the dietary diversity differences between rural and urban and analyzed determinants of dietary diversity for the rural and urban households, using the fourth wave of the 2014/2015 panel data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS). Statistical, Food Consumption Scores, and econometrics analyses were used to estimate the differences between the rural and urban food diversity. The results show that rural households have high dietary diversity compared to urban households. due to participation in various agricultural activities such as crop cultivation. Household education, households’ size and time spent in water collection were the main determinant for both rural and urban dietary diversity. Other factors such as plot cultivation, fishing activities, livestock keeping, time spent in firewood collection and household age were found to influence rural household dietary diversity while marital status was found to influence urban dietary diversity. To improve household dietary diversity, the study recommends that the government should increase investment in infrastructure such as roads to make easy transportation of food varieties. Provision of social services such as water is important for facilitating dietary diversification