Food Security and Livestock Linkages in Three Major Livestock Husbandry Districts of Punjab, Pakistan

Abstract

The basic intention of the current study is to explore the association between livestock husbandry and domestic food security (accessibility) of small farmers in three major districts of province Punjab Pakistan, namely Gujranwala, Narowal and Hafiz Abad, using primary data of 180 respondents collected using structured questionnaire through proportionate stratified random sampling. Livestock is an essential contributor and supplier to the food and nutritional security and works as a vital source of employment and occupation. Livestock has a substantial role in employment generation, cash income generation, a decline of poverty and food safety in rural areas of overall Pakistan and the districts under study. To measure the effectiveness of livestock ownership on rural food security in three major districts of Punjab, Pakistan, the OLS regression model has been utilized along with dependent variable of food security (accessibility) and independent variables of family size, income comes from livestock, education of the head and a total number of earners. The outcomes of this study reveal that independent variables, i.e., incomes from livestock, a total number of earners, education and family size, have a significant positive relationship with the dependent variable of food security (accessibility), which means improvement in all the explanatory variables is a quite helpful tool to boost the food security situation of the area under discussion.