Background It is believed that in Ethiopia barley has been cultivated before 3000BC. Among the cereals, it is ranked in fifth place and the most important crop next to teff, sorghum, and wheat in the country. Different works of literature highlight that engagement in contract farming is one of the innovations promoted to tackle technology constraints of the smallholder farmers, as a possible solution to raising productivity and linking smallholders in the emerging modern marketing chains. Associated with the rapid rate of urbanization in the country, there is a high demand for malt barley which is resulting high expansion of beer factories. Consequently, in the study area, many farmers got into a contract agreement with Assela malt barley factories. Recent studies conducted on malt barley in Ethiopia gave much emphasis to the value chain aspect of malt barley. Therefore, the main motive behind this study was to fill the empirical literature gap in the field by giving much emphasis on the impact assessment of malt barley contract arrangement on income and food items dietary diversity of the respondent households. Methodology To attain the study objectives, both primary and secondary data were collected and used. Randomly selected 312 households comprising 127 households engaged in malt barley contract farming arrangements and 185 non-contract households were the source of primary data for this study. Secondary data were collected from a review of different works of literature. Both descriptive and econometric models were used to analyze the primary data using Stata software version 14. The propensity score matching model was applied to examine the impact of malt barley contract farming engagement on the income and dietary diversity of the respondents. Result It was found that family size, credit use, livestock holding, malt barley production experience, frequency of extension contact, and land allotted for malt barley production positively determine the probability of participation in malt barley contract farming arrangement. Contrary to this, distance to the malt barley collection centers negatively determine the probability of participation in malt barley contract farming. The ATT estimation of the PSM indicated that participation in malt barley contract farming has a positive impact on the income and dietary diversity of the respondent households. Conclusion Participation in contract farming had a positive and significant impact on the annual income and dietary diversity of the smallholder households. The sensitivity analysis result showed that the impact results estimated by this study are insensitive to unobserved selection bias and the result obtained shows the true impact of contract farming on the income of the households. Therefore, concerned bodies working on malt barley production aspects as a development intervention should work to encourage non-contract farmers to engage in this activity.
Climate change poses a significant threat to the sustainability of agricultural production among smallholder farm households in Ethiopia. To reduce the adverse effects of climate risks, farm households have sought to adopt different adaptation strategies. This study investigates factors influencing farm households’ choice of climate adaptation strategies and associated effects on their food security in Ethiopia using data collected from 516 farm households from three regions. A multivariate probit and propensity score matching models were used to analyze data. Major adaptation strategies adopted by the farm households in the study area are planting drought-tolerant crop varieties (60%), changing the planting dates (53%), growing diversified crops (49%), and diversifying the sources of household income (45%). Results suggest that older farm household heads are more likely to use drought-tolerant crop varieties to reduce climate risks. Farm households with larger farmland size and those with more years of experience in farming are more likely to use drought-tolerant crop varieties and crop diversification strategies. Farm households with larger family size are more likely to use crop and income diversification strategies and change the planting dates against the backdrop of a high risk of climatic shocks. Membership in input supply cooperatives, frequency of contact with extension agents, and access to information on expected rainfall and temperature are positively associated with different adaptation practices adopted by farm households. Farm households who have adopted climate adaptation strategies have higher food security status (by 2.3–2.8%) compared to those who have not. Thus, the farm households’ climate adaptation practices have positive food security effects in Ethiopia.
Using primary data collected from 462 farm households, this paper aims to examine the impact of income diversification on rural household food security in Ethiopia. A propensity score matching model was employed to analyze the impact of participation in both agriculture and non-agriculture activities on household food security. The results indicate that age, education level, household size, number of contacts with extension agents, and numbers of livestock in tropical livestock units have a significant effect on household participation in both agriculture and non-agriculture sources of income generation. The propensity score matching result suggested that participation in both agriculture and non-agriculture would increase the rural household food security status by 10.6% to 19.5%, mainly due to a positive effect of additional sources of income generation from non-agriculture activities as witnessed in present and past studies. Therefore, to make considerable improvement on the food security situation, there is need to promote and scale-up on-farm, off-farm and non-farm income-generating activities in rural areas to diversify income sources so as to improve food security status of the rural households in Ethiopia.
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