Title: Climatic changes and vulnerability of household food utilisation in Malaysian East Coast Economic Region

Authors: Md. Mahmudul Alam; Chamhuri Siwar; Basri Abdul Talib; Abu N.M. Wahid

Addresses: School of Economics, Finance and Banking, College of Business, Universiti Utara Malaysia, Kedah, Malaysia ' Institute for Environment and Development (LESTARI), National University of Malaysia (UKM), 43600 UKM Bangi, Selangor Darul Ehsan, Malaysia ' Faculty of Economics and Management, National University of Malaysia (UKM), 43600 UKM Bangi, Selangor Darul Ehsan, Malaysia ' Department of Economics and Finance, Tennessee State University, Nashville, Tennessee, USA

Abstract: Sustainable food security at household level is one of the emerging issues for all nations. There are several factors such as social, economic, political, demographic, natural, and livelihood strategies that causes to the vulnerability of the status of household food security. Therefore examining the vulnerability of these factors is essential to identify the reason and recognise the most vulnerable communities. This study is an attempt to study on the vulnerability of the factors of household food utilisation and its linkage with climatic changes in Malaysia. The study is based on primary data collected in the months of July-October, 2012 through a questionnaire survey on 460 low income households from East Coast Economic Region (ECER) in Malaysia. The samples were selected from E-Kasih poor household database, based on cluster random sampling technique. The study found that the vulnerability of the factors of household food utilisation has increased statistically significantly over the last five years period due to difference between rural and city food quality, occurrences of natural disasters, incidences of mosquitoes, insects, pest, etc., and diseases like dengue, malaria, heat stretch, cold, skin disease, etc. This study suggests that the food security programs need to be integrated with climatic change adaptation programs to ensure more effective and sustainable household food security in future, especially among the poor and low income group.

Keywords: climate change; Malaysia; East Coast Economic Region; ECER; food quality; food safety; food nutrition; drinking water quality; natural disaster; adaptation; disease.

DOI: 10.1504/IJESD.2018.096860

International Journal of Environment and Sustainable Development, 2018 Vol.17 No.4, pp.331 - 346

Received: 04 Jul 2017
Accepted: 25 Sep 2017
Published online: 12 Dec 2018 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article