Poverty, Livelihoods and Food Security. The Case of the Municipalities of Aguadas and Palestina, Caldas, Colombia

Abstract

Poverty and food security are closely related social phenomena. In the case of rural population,an expression of poverty is food insecurity. The focus on policies and programsto reduce it has been using conventional poverty indexes (LP, NBI). In this paper, we proposethe framework of livelihoods, as a tool to explain poverty and design policies andprograms to facilitate the food achievement in rural households. The paper concludesthat within those contexts, in addition to conventional indexes, it is necessary to considerthe rurality index of populations, diversity household strategies, access to assets,vulnerability context and the structures and processes related to them.