Furthermore, the existing studies almost exclusively concentrate
on the northern part of Maasailand, i.e., southern
Kenya (Maasai Mara, area south of Nairobi) and northern
Tanzania (Serengeti, Ngorongoro Conservation Area and the
larger Arusha area; for a map, see Homewood et al., 2009).
Yet, many Maasai live in central Tanzania (Dodoma region) or
eastern Tanzania (Morogoro region) and thus we focus on this
southern part of Maasailand, i.e., the Ngerengere division in
particular.
The main goal of this article is to investigate two facets and
indicators of the food security situation of Maasai subhouseholds
using three different milk sale regimes including no sale,
sale to a milk collection center (MCC), and sale to other buyers.
Then, our first objective is to describe and compare the variety
of food items used and the quantities consumed by each sales
group. The second objective is to assess: (1) the estimated energy
intake as an indicator for sufficient food availability and
(2) the effect of milk sale on dietary diversity (i.e., number
of food items and of food groups used). Dietary diversity was
found to be highly linked to nutrition and hence is suitable to
capture the “nutrition-aspect” of food security