Focus group discussion
Village: Code:village/number/data
Date:
Group:
Monitor/team leader:
1. Typology of Households.
-Ask the group to classify the families in 3 or 4 distinct categories according to their food security: most secure (no problems) / average / most vulnerable (and possibly extremely vulnerable).
- Ask the group to clarify the criteria upon which they have based their identification of the different categories. List these criteria.
-Ask the group to indicate the relative proportion of each category on the hill (follow the
Proportion piling technique using beans).
Criteria cited / %families in secure category / % families in average category / %families in vulnerable category / %families in extremely vulnerable categoryHome owner
Land surface cultivated
livestock
Sources of food
Sources of income
Access to infrastructures
…………….
…………….
……………..
2.Typology of exploitation
2.1Agricultural
-Size of farms;
-Fertility of farms;
-Types of farming practiced (staple crops/cash crops);
-Rented/owned land?
-Supply/use/input capital (seeds, organic or mineral fertilizer, plant products, tools…);
-Length of harvest time (stock, food cover after each harvest);
-Use of harvest (preservation, transformation…);
What is the harvest in a normal year?
What will it be this year?
What is the percentage of?
- Crops planted (now and in a normal year)?
How is the crop performance? What agricultural
Problems do the people face?
Is this exceptional, why?
How much should the harvest be for a minimum income?
- What is the quality of the seeds, tools and fertilizers? Who owns the tools? Has anything
Changed recently?
2.2 Production
-What are the main production systems in the area?
-What are the normal seasonal fluctuations in food availability?
-What are the main crops produced within the area?
-What is the level of production for these main crops?
-How has production (harvests, pasture, and livestock) changed compared to normal?
-What other foods are available? To what extent will they enable the population to meet their requirements?
2.3Livestock capital:
-what type?
-How many?
-For consumption?
-For manure?
- For capital?
-Duringcertain periods of the year only?
Have there been changes in herd sizes?
How is the availability of water and veterinary drugs?
- How is the milk and meat yield?
Are there currently changes in that, why?
- What are major problems now and in a normal year?
Are these exceptional, why?
3.Typology of economic activities
3.1Incomes
Income:
The income they gain from employment (skilled/unskilled), sale of ration items, sale of own production (food/other), remittances, gifts, other sources; seasonal variations; how incomes have changed and are expected to evolve.
-Sources of incomes: specify and try to quantify:
current average monthly or weekly:
sale of (own food produces, wild products, food aid…), remittances from relatives, rent, loan, credits…
-Labour employment/Sale of labour
-Possession of certain savings: goods/material■
Does this change over the year, how? Has this recently changed, why and how? What income differences are there? What is a minimum income for a household of a given number of people?
Income categories / % male / % femaleSale of food crops and cash crops
Milk and other dairy sales
Livestock sales
Labour (agriculture, construction
Sale of wild foods
Craftwork (mats, baskets, pots);
Gifts, zakat (gifts normally offered in Islamic communities); and
other production and collection and sale (firewood, charcoal, grass
Others…………..
3.2 expenditure
Essential expenditures: expenditures on food (per week);
expenditures on other essentials (per month);
how expenditures have changed and are expected to evolve
- What are the main costs for the people on average in a normal year (per livelihood group or
Per community if it is similar)?
Does this change over the year, how? Has this recently
Changed, why and how?
Expenditure categories / %(proportional piling)
Food (specified)
Firewood, charcoal, kerosene
Household items (soap, clothes)
Transport fees;
Drinking water
School fees;
Gifts
Taxes
Housing (rent);
Investment (livestock purchase or stocking);
Health (consultation and drugs for people, for animals);
Miscellaneous (rent for land, seeds, fertilizers, tools, electricity, entertainment, alcohol).
4. Access to basics services
Access to healthcare. Health management /basic hygiene.
-Education: Schooling of children.
Level of adult education
-Others: transport, market
-Water
-Firewood
5. Copy mechanism
Classification and examples of coping Strategies:
Copy mechanism adopted / % / male / femaleReversible strategies
changes in food intake (e.g. less meals, cheaper foods, wild foods
Drawing on food stores
migration for work,
selling non-productive assets
Taking out loans or calling in debts.
Changes in livestock migration patterns
Sending children to live with richer relatives
Irreversible strategies
the sale of productive asset (e.g. farmland, draught oxen, sewing machine if tailor, livestock which are key to survival of way of life)
Mortgaging of farmland
Taking out loans which cannot be paid back
Risky survival strategies
Prostitution
Theft
Engaging in illegal economy e.g. drug trafficking
………………………………
………………………………….
.
6. Typology of food
6.1 Food source
In a normal year, how do people obtain their food? Does this change over the year, how?
Has this recently changed, why and how?
Examples of food source categories / %own crop production
Purchase
own livestock products (milk, meat)
Exchange for labour or food for work;
Wild food collection
Milk and other dairy sales
gifts of food
Food aid;
Barter (exchange one product for another);
Loans
Stocks
Food at work, at school
Fishing, hunting
6.2Food stocks
-Existence of food stock?
- Community stock?
-How much food is stored by the Government in the area? (E.g. in government grain reserves)
6.3 Imports/exports
-Where are the main markets?
-What are the usual sources of food in the market and what is it now?
-How much food is likely to be imported into and exported out of the area?
-How has availability of food in the markets changed?
-What are the national and local market mechanisms?
6.4 Food consumption patterns
- What is the average family diet in a normal year?
Who is responsible for meeting the food?
Needs? What is the number of meals?
Who prepares these and how?
-where does the food come from (production, market, exchange, donation, solidarity)?
-Who eats what? Are their differences in diet between children, women and men? What are they?
-Are there seasonal shortages of food in the household in a normal year? What do people do?
To meet their food needs then? Do you normally collect wild foods, what kind?
-has there been any change recently in the people’s diets, since when and how? Why?
-What do people do to avoid food shortage in the family?
6.5 Market prices
-How have the prices of basic commodities changed compared to normal for the time of year?
- Can you give me prices of important commodities (cash crops, food crops, as well as sugar?
Salt, vegetables)?
- Do you think the prices will fall or rise? Why?
-how is the access to market? What are the main market days? Have there been any changes
In people selling or buying? Why?
Ask the same questions about livestock, milk and meat.
- What is the livestock/grain ratio, for example, how much grain do you need to buy one goat?
Has this changed over time? When, how and why?
Market priceCommodities / unit / current price / price one year ago
Cereals
Wheat
Rice
Shorgum
millet
maize
Processed cereals
maize meal
wheat flour
bulgur wheat
Dairy products
milk
cheese
Therapeutic milk
Meat and fish
(canned) meat
(canned) fish
Dried salted fish
Oil and facts
vegetable oil
butter oil
Pulses
beans
peas
lentils
miscellaneus
sugar
dried fruit
dates
tea
salt
Legumes-vegetables
groundnuts
vegetable
Meat
Cow
goat
sheep
beef
mutton
poultry
Livestock
Cow
goat
sheep
beef
mutton
poultry
Finally, possibly finish with a discussion about the possible interventions which could be put intoPractice in a pertinent and effective manner, these activities should aim to reduce the problems.