Research
Energy balance
Market-purchased foods contribute significantly to calorie consumption (42% on average) even during harvest seasons, and become the primary source (>50%) during lean seasons.
Do not assume that your harvest covers your annual caloric needs. Plan for market purchases year-round. During the lean season, your reliance on purchased food will exceed 50% of your calories. Ensure you have a steady income source (farm sales or off-farm work) to buy food during these times.
GoodSupportsHIGH confidence
On average, subsistence production accounts for 58% of rural households’ calorie consumption, that is, 42% of the calories consumed are from purchased foods... During the lean season, purchased foods account for more than half of all calories consumed.
Why this rating
Based on the same robust, longitudinal dataset as N1.
Source
Rural food security, subsistence agriculture, and seasonality
Kibrom T. Sibhatu et al. · PLoS ONE · 2017
DOI 10.1371/journal.pone.0186406
cross_sectional · n=10322Cited 321×
Read the paper DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10
More from this paper
- For rural smallholder households, market-purchased foods contribute more to dietary diversity than subsistence production, regardless of season or nutrition status.Good
- Off-farm income is a critical mechanism for smoothing food consumption and maintaining dietary diversity during the lean season.Good
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