Effects of Social Capital on Achieving Food Security in Drought Conditions (Case Study: Rural Settlements in Dorud County)

Farmers frequently cope with risks due to the uncertainty of climatic conditions. The population growth, changes in agricultural policies, environmental regulations, and degradation of natural resources, such as soil and water have all caused farmers face with numerous challenges. Although they have experience in coping with a certain degree of uncertainty, increased climate variability and changes may cause severe problems. Drought in particular is a climatic disaster imposing substantial costs on farmers and affects their agricultural systems extensively. It is the most complex of all natural hazards making vulnerable the arid and semi-arid regions of the world. Although it has not been well documented, the resource-dependent sectors like agriculture are the most vulnerable sectors to the impacts of this phenomenon. A review of the long-term annual precipitation trends indicated that drought had a worldwide return frequency of every 20e30 years. However, in the last 50 years, some countries, such as Iran and Bangladesh, have experienced approximately 27 and 19 drought events, respectively. Therefore, for arid and semiarid regions, drought is a recurrent feature that can lead to the loss of crop production, food shortage, and starvation if not managed properly. Drought impacts could be managed at the macro (national), mesa (local), and micro (village and household) levels. However, the micro-level management (i.e., what farmers should do in response to drought) is of great importance. A review of the studies on farmers’ decision-making in response to climate variability revealed that most research has focused on the decision event and not on the entire process (Swinburn et al., 2011). The food ‘problem’ has become a global obsession: How much and what kind of food is produced? How and by whom is it produced? How is it moved, processed, packaged, and sold? What impacts does it have? Who gets it? What does he/she get it? How much does he/she eat? What might the future hold for all these variables? Such questions are now the subject of measurement, analysis, critique, and campaigning in research journals, policy documents, newspapers and on television screens worldwide. Moreover, the scales of the problems we face and their relationships with the food system are now well recognised and have been exhaustively described elsewhere (Godfray et al., 2010; Beddington et al., 2011; Foresight, 2011; Savari et al., 2013). Put briefly, our global population is rapidly growing and becoming urbanised and thus wealthier. Some consequences are that our dietary patterns are undergoing a change and our demands for land, resource, greenhouse gas (GHG), and intensive foods, such as meat and dairy products, are on the increase. Nonetheless, the available resources of land, water, and minerals are finite though our demands on the Earth may be growing. The difficulties presented by this demand-supply imbalance are compounded by the changing environmental conditions, which would make food production increasingly difficult or unpredictable in many regions of the world. Our production systems not only undermine future aspects of the ecosystem such as biodiversity and water quality upon which we ultimately depend for living, but also exacerbate zoonotic diseases and other risks that directly affect our health. Perhaps most starkly, inequities and distortions in the distribution ways of the inputs to and outputs from food production have given rise to a paradoxical situation wherein 1.4 billion people in the world are overweight or obese, while other 850 million lack sufficient calories and are thus undernourished (FAO, 2011). The advocates of this dominant approach include governments and food industry actors, such as agricultural input businesses, farming unions, manufacturers, and retailers. In essence, this perspective is based on the assumption that the food security problem is a supply-side challenge. More food needs to be produced to meet the increasing and changing demands of the growing populations. Technological innovations and managerial improvements may enable us to more effectively meet these demands in a way that we put less harmful impacts on the environment besides enhancing nutrition and food production (ADAS et al., 2011). Climate change and global warming in recent decades have taken the world to the point that almost all the countries are now facing drought and water shortages. Among the economic sectors, the agricultural sector has suffered the most due to its high dependence on rainfall. The first effects of drought begin with a reduction in food production and farmers’ incomes, which have now led to increased poverty and food insecurity in rural areas. Therefore, this study was conducted with the general aim of assessing the effects of social capital on achieving food security in drought conditions in the rural settlements of Dorud County.

The statistical population of this study included all the rural households working in the agricultural sector of Dorud County. Three hundred seventy five heads of households were selected through stratified sampling method with proportional assignment by using Krejcie and Morgan table. The data analysis was performed based on the descriptive and inferential statistics using SPSS software. The main research tool was a questionnaire whose validity and reliability were confirmed by a panel of experts and Cronbach's alpha coefficient, respectively.

The results revealed that the rural households were not in a good position in terms of food security and social capital. In addition, the results of ordinal regression showed that the components of social capital (social trust, social cohesion, participation and collective action, and group membership) had positive and significant effects on improving food security in the rural households in Dorud County. The results of this research can provide new insights for policy-makers and rural development planners to stabilize rural households in drought conditions.

Access to adequate nutrition (nutritional health) is one of the main pillars of development and the basis for the future development of the country. According to the studies on the role of nutrition in health, the nutrition efficiency and its relation with economic development have been corroborated. Access to adequate and desirable food is one of the earliest human rights; however, various studies have demonstrated that rural communities that are responsible for food security themselves are facing food insecurity, which is much more inferior to the situation in a drought condition. Rural households are always at the forefront of drought vulnerability and hence quickly lose their resilience and leave the agricultural sector in the absence of risk mitigation systems. Therefore, proper measures must be taken to enable them to continue their activities in agriculture in drought conditions and maintain the backbone of food security in the country.