Impact of environmental degradation and poverty on food security

The study was conducted in the White Nile State. It aimed to assess the environmental situation and poverty in the area and its impact on food security. This study to investigate the socio-economic characteristics of the population, production cost, net returns and the effect of some scio-economic characteristics of the population and agronomic factors on crop yield in the area. The primary data were collected by a multi stage stratified random sample of 160 respondents (80 farmers and 80 non-farmers) in the White Nile State in the year 2002 using a questionnaire. In addition to the secondary data from the relevant sources. The descriptive statistics were used to investigate the socio-economic characteristics of the respondent, environmental situation, food status and poverty distribution. Crop budget analysis was conducted to estimate the production cost and profitability of the crops under study. An econometric model of food crops (dura and wheat) consttructed with yield being the dependant variable and the different agricultural inputs as independent variables. Cobb-Douglas production function was fitted to the data to investigate the effect of the main socio-ecnomic and agronomic factors. The descriptive statistics analysis revealed that 91.2% of non-farmer respondents were within the productive age group (20-60) years, while 33.8% of farmers were older (over 60) years. Although 47.5% and 70% from farmers and non farmers, respectively received formal education, which is reflected in the deteriorated situation of the agricultural labors that lead to the weak awareness of farmers on environmental issues, which resulted on deforestation of the region this deprived the local population from the benefits of trees. Most of the respondents said that the main factors curtailing agricultural productivity were shortage of irrigation water, lack of finance and inputs. The environmental impact clearly present on the cost structure that the cost of land preparation, irrigation and fertilizer represent a high percentile ratio comparable to the other items of cost that it present 53, 62, 68.4, 68.2 and 45% of the total cost for dura wheat, tomato, okra and onion, respectively. The studies revealed that vegetable were more profitable than food crops, but in spite of that farmer preferred to cultivate food crops rather than vegetables for the purpose of self satisfaction. Regression analysis for food crops showed that the environmental factors have significant effect on productivity and that the northern degraded area (stratification) has negative impact while irrigation has positive significant impact that mean the utilization of low level of irrigation input mainly due to soil erosion that logged the irrigation canals. This calls for the maintenance and rehabilitation of the irrigation system by mean of increasing the investment on the irrigation infrastructure, which appear on the positive significant effect of the production cost that the increase of the cost increased the productivity. In addition to that, some of the elasticities of the individual variable indicated the existence of increasing returns to scale for all crops. Time series analysis revealed that the trend of food crop procuctivity are declining, the productivity of dura and wheat will reach zero level after 55 and 18 years respectively. For food security and poverty alleviation the study recommended the following: Putting the White Nile Scheme under govermental administration. Provision of inputs at proper time and for reasonable prices. Improvement of extension services and marketing systems. Agricultural diversification and increase the area under the vegetables.