Abstract

The prevalence of poverty in Lesotho is a pressing issues raising concern in terms of rural households’ food security and welfare. In that regard, this study attempts to establish or identify the determinants of farmers’ access to inputs via the government. The second part incorporates the use of subsidized inputs and measure the impact of the government input subsidy program on food security. The motive behind this study is to fill a gap in the economics literature in this area, which often does not assess the impacts of agricultural input subsidy programs (despite their widespread prevalence) and its impact on food security. The Combination of econometric approaches was applied to a selected sample of rural households actively engaged in maize production, and the findings revealed the determinants of farmers’ access to inputs as being cropland allocation, type of fertilizer and ecological zones. The vast majority of rural households doesn’t receive or get subsidized inputs and out of that small portion of the recipients, half of them don’t use their inputs (chemical fertilizers). This phenomenon is due to the fact that, rural households may not be in a position to use their inputs because of late delivery, or to use optimally because they do not perceive the benefits.

Key words: Agricultural input-subsidy policy, food security, Lesotho, Mohale’s Hoek District.