Climatic seasonality and growth; longitudinal reserach in Coast Province, Kenya

Seasonality research can offer an explanation for the persistent poverty in the rural areas of Third World countries. Besides, it offers a framework in which research questions originating from a variety of disciplines can be included. This book contains five lectures presented in December 1988 at a workshop on seasons, food supply and nutrition in Africa. D. Foeken offers an overview of aspects of seasonality in sub-Saharan Africa, which serves as a framework within which the other contributions fit. R. Niemeijer and W. Klaver present the seasonal fluctuations in the nutritional condition of young children and their mothers in Coast Province, Kenya, and relate these fluctuations to ecotype and household welfare level. J. van Raaij and W. Schultink discuss the usefulness of research on fluctuations in nutritional conditions by means of an analysis of the energy balance, using a survey held among rural women in Benin as illustration. A. den Hartog and I. Brouwer argue that, as long as food shortages are of a seasonal character, curative mechanisms will concern mainly food habits. When food shortage becomes more chronic, however, a variety of other adaptations may be necessary. Like seasonality, external interventions (such as fluctuations in government spending and the school calendar) have their rhythms; rhythms that may coincide or collide with the seasonal pattern. T. Dietz explores this aspect of seasonality, using data from surveys in Kenya, Zimbabwe, Togo/Benin and Morocco