*5.3. The Role of Market Access in Food Consumption Diversity*

Recent studies have also shown that food consumption diversity for smallholder households may be influenced by factors beyond farm production. In essence, most smallholders are neither strictly subsistence-oriented nor market-oriented [3]. As noted earlier, our analysis shows that household food consumption expenditure was positively associated with food consumption diversity. This partly suggests that households with higher food consumption expenditure spend on more diverse food items that are available in food markets. In Kilosa district where the contribution of farm production diversity was largely insignificant, access to markets, both for selling of agricultural produce and purchases of food, appeared to play a significant role in influencing household food consumption diversity. Descriptive analysis showed that, despite low farm production diversity, households in Kilosa had higher food consumption diversity compared to those in Chamwino. This may be associated with better agricultural potential and market access in Kilosa as compared to Chamwino. As noted by Sibhatu et al. [9], increased market transactions tend to lower the role of farm production diversity on food consumption. They note that better access to markets enable households to not only purchase diverse foods but also use their comparative advantage to produce and sell food and cash crops and hence generate higher agricultural incomes.
