Food Security and Coping Mechanisms among Rural Households: A Critical Review of Determinants, Trade-offs and Pathways to Resilience

Abstract

Rural household food insecurity in developing countries is often framed as a problem of inadequate food production, yet the evidence shows that it arises from interacting constraints on entitlements, purchasing power, health, care, markets, institutions and exposure to shocks. This critical narrative review integrates evidence on the determinants of food security and on the coping mechanisms used by rural households when access deteriorates. Literature was identified through accessible scholarly indexes, institutional sources, publisher records and citation chaining, with a principal search period from January 2000 to 9 April 2026 and selective inclusion of foundational earlier work. The synthesis indicates that productive assets and farm performance matter, but their effects are strongly conditioned by market access, food prices, non-farm earnings, household labour, health, gendered agency and local institutions. Climate hazards, conflict, illness and macroeconomic shocks often operate cumulatively rather than independently. Coping is best understood as a sequenced portfolio rather than a single response. Early measures, including dietary substitution, reduced non-food expenditure, informal transfers and short-term borrowing, may protect immediate consumption, whereas repeated debt, withdrawal of children from school, distress migration and productive-asset sales can reduce future earning capacity and create self-reinforcing food-insecurity traps. Evidence on coping is nevertheless difficult to interpret because households adopt more severe strategies precisely when deprivation is greatest, while most studies are cross-sectional and measure outcomes inconsistently. Social protection generally improves food consumption and can protect assets, but effects vary with transfer adequacy, predictability, timing, delivery modality, market conditions, targeting and links to livelihoods and services. The review argues for a shift from isolated food or production interventions towards layered systems that prevent reversible coping from becoming erosive. Stronger longitudinal, gender-responsive and shock-sensitive research is needed to distinguish effective adaptation from strategies that merely postpone deprivation.