Assessment of food security among Takhar University lecturers in 2022

Abstract

Food security means that all people, always, have physical, social, and economic access to sufficient, safe, and nutritious food that meets their food preference and dietary needs for an active and healthy life. In Afghanistan, four in ten households (44 percent) are worried about losing their jobs, followed by concerns on food shortages (34 percent), and increases in food prices (7 percent). Worries about food shortages have tripled since August 2021 (10 percent). These have been the top three concerns for nine months in a row. (16). Food security is a substantial right of human beings and should be addressed in all groups of the society. This study aims to assess the food security among Takhar university lecturers. 169 university lecturers were selected from Takhar university through stratified random sampling technique. Data were collected randomly by well-structured questionnaires from the lecturers of 7 faculties of Takhar university. The result of the present study shows that 8% of university lecturers have very low food security and 49% are with low food security, so we can say about 57% of Takhar university lectures do not have sufficient food security. Moreover, the food security of 63% university lecturers was better than 57% of lecturers.  Food security was associated with education level, academic position, monthly income, and having another job besides being a lecturer among university lecturers. Furthermore, lecturers between 25-30 year with a bachelor's degree (Namzad Pohanyar & Pohanyar) had the lowest odds to have sufficient food security, and those with associate professor position (Pohanwal) and monthly income of more than 33000Af had better food security among other categories. most of the lecturers above age of 40, were overweight (35%) and 22% were obese, it was because of low systematic physical activities. Low food security is prevalent among university lecturers. Therefore, Attracting the attention of Islamic Emarat government in the field of increasing the privileges of faculty members compared to the privileges of faculty members in neighboring countries will minimize the risk of low and very low food security among the lecturers.