The livestock sector serves as a foremost source of revenue for rural people, particularly in many developing countries. Among the livestock species, sheep and goats are the main source of livelihood for rural people in Ethiopia; they can quickly multiply, resilient and are easily convertible to cash to meet financial needs of the rural producers. The multiple contributions of sheep and goat and other livestock to rural farmers are however being challenged by climate change and variability. Farmers are responding to the impacts of climate change by adopting different mechanisms, where choices are largely dependent on many factors. This study, therefore, aims to analyze the determinants of choices of adaptation practices to climate change that causes scarcity of feed, heat stress, shortage of water and pasture on sheep and goat production. The study used 318 sample households drawn from potential livestock producing districts representing 3 agro-ecological settings. Data was analyzed using simple descriptive statistical tools, a multivariate probit model and Ordinary Least Squares (OLS). Most of the respondents (98.6 %) noted that climate is changing. Respondents’ perception is that climate change is expressed through increased temperature (88 %) and decline in rainfall (73 %) over the last 10 years. The most commonly used adaptation strategy was marketing during forage shock (96.5 %), followed by home feeding (89.6 %). The estimation from the multivariate probit model showed that access to information, farming experience, number of households in one village, distance to main market, income of household, and agro-ecological settings influenced farmers’ adaptation choices to climate change. Furthermore, OLS revealed that the adaptation strategies had positive influence on the household income.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s40064-016-3042-3) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Tuberculosis coinfected with HIV constitutes a large proportion of patients in Ethiopia. Isoniazid preventive therapy (IPT) is recommended for the treatment of latent tuberculosis infection. However, the level of IPT adherence and associated factors among people living with HIV (PLHIV) have not been well explored. This study aimed to assess adherence to IPT and associated factors among PLHIV in Addis Ababa. Facility based cross-sectional study was conducted. The study was conducted in 10 health centers and 2 hospitals. Patients were consecutively recruited till the required sample size was obtained. From 406 PLHIV approached, a total of 381 patients on IPT were interviewed. Data were entered and analyzed using Epi-Info version 3.5 and SPSS version 16. The level of adherence to IPT was 89.5%. Patients who have taken isoniazid for ≥5 months were more likely to be adherent than those who took it for 1-2 months [AOR (95%CI) = 5.09 (1.41-18.36)]. Patients whose friends decide for them to start IPT were less likely to be adherent than others [AOR (95%CI) = 0.10 (0.01-0.82)]. The level of adherence to IPT in PLHIV was high. Counseling of patients who are in their first two months of therapy should be more strengthened. Strong Information Education Communication is essential to further enhance adherence.

Climate change is one of the most serious impediments to agricultural prosperity in Ethiopia, especially where livestock is concerned. In particular, rural farming communities in the drylands of the Afar region are severely exposed to the impacts of climate change, with stark reminders from repeating droughts followed by crop failure and livestock decimation. Locals have a long history of applying adaptation measures to maintain their sustenance. However, a growing literature challenges whether these traditional methods can continue to sustain local livelihoods. This study identifies how pastoral, semi-pastoral, agro-pastoral and mixed-farming communities in Afar perceive and adapt to climate change and whether these practices have brought about any improvement in farm income. A panel data set of five years was gathered using structured questionnaires from a sample of 313 households. Household heads pointed out indicators to identify climate-related stress such as erratic rainfall, drought, temperature change, drying of water sources, prevalence of diseases and lack of human and livestock feed. A fixed effects quantitative model on the panel data was estimated to verify the effect of adaptation strategies on income of household heads. We found that the main adaptation strategies that significantly influenced household income levels were forage production (hay and straw), access to water sources, livestock diversification and migration. The implication is that people severely affected by climate change and living in a situation demanding urgent solutions can actively apply various adaptation strategies if the strategies are linked to the creation of sustainable income benefits. Thus, integrated approaches comprising adaptation methods and expected benefits are an important way to induce farming communities to address challenges related to climatic change.

Background: Increasing energy demands on farm households in Ethiopia have escalated challenges related to land degradation, indoor air quality, and rural economic development. Soil deterioration followed by reduced carbon sequestration compounds the adverse effects of environmental degradation and climate change. The Ethiopian government has disseminated thousands of bio-digesters across rural villages with the hope that introducing biodigesters to rural farm households would address all of these issues. However, there is scant information about how households make energy choices and consequently how the introduction of biogas energy will affect income and the environment in these rural agricultural communities. Therefore, this study aims to verify how biogas energy adopters make decisions about their energy consumption and how biogas energy use compares to traditional alternatives such as firewood, charcoal, and dried animal dung. Methods: Quantitative data were gathered using semi-structured questionnaires of 300 farmers in the Tigray region of Ethiopia, following the collection of qualitative data obtained via focus groups. Using descriptive analysis, we quantified weekly consumption of traditional energy sources and major reasons why households choose each energy source. We estimated a multivariate probit model and conducted correlation tests to verify the use of biogas energy as a substitute or complement for traditional energy sources. Results: Results show that a household's choice for biogas energy was statistically and positively correlated to both firewood and charcoal use. Despite biogas digester adoption in several households, the majority continue to depend upon traditional energy sources. This suggests that overall household energy consumption increases with the availability of biogas digesters. The study reveals that the size of cattle holding, working age, gender, access to electricity, access to credit services, and livestock mobility influence household energy choices. Conclusions: The study concludes that household biogas energy use remains below expectations, even though subsidies make the units affordable for small farmers. We assert that households are more likely to adopt technologies that facilitate cooking food, baking injera, and preparing coffee. Biogas utilization might improve if farmers have access to improved stoves and credit services. However, policy makers also need to consider the possibility that providing access to biogas digesters may actually increase the use of traditional fuel sources and have the reverse effect than that intended.

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Topological indices are widely used for quantitative structure-activity relationship (QSAR) and quantitative structure-property relationship (QSPR). Topological coindices are topological indices that considers the non adjacent pairs of vertices. Here, we consider the following five well-known topological coindices: the first and second Zagreb coindices, the first and second multiplicative Zagreb coindices and the F-coindex. By using graph structural analysis and derivation, we study the above-mentioned topological coindices of some chemical molecular graphs that frequently appear in medical, chemical, and material engineering such as graphene sheet and C4C8(S) nanotubes and nanotorus and obtain the computation formulae of the coindices of these graphs. Furthermore, we analyze the results by MATLAB and obtain the relationship of the coindices which they describe the physcio-chemical properties and biological activities.

The increasing population pressure in the rural areas of Sub-Saharan Africa has caused land degradation as well as an increase in the number of landless farmers. To promote a conservation-oriented utilization of communal lands and increase the livelihood of poor farmers, the Ethiopian government introduced a program to distribute less-utilized communal lands to landless farmers. This study identified the social norms related to natural resource conservation that affect the participation in this program. Using data from 477 farmer households in northern Ethiopia, we estimated probit models with endogenous regressors for the determinants of social norms and their impacts on program participation. The results show that social norms related to conservation positively affect program participation. Regarding policy implication of the findings, an intervention to improve the social norms of local farmers leads to sustainable resource conservation without reducing intrinsic motivation of the local people. A conservation-oriented utilization of the communal lands would be more effective if the land distribution program was accompanied by other programs to improve the social norms in the villages.

The problem of landlessness has become one of the major challenges facing rural farmers in Tigrai region since the early 1990s. To address the problem, the regional government of Tigrai started to redistribute degraded communal land to landless farmers by ensuring their participation in soil and water conservation activities and willingness to engage in the programme. Thus, the specific objectives of this study are to examine the livelihood options and analyse their economic dependence level of the rural landless households on the apportioned degraded communal land. Data were collected from randomly selected landless households and analysed using descriptive and econometric techniques. Accordingly, the study identified plantation of timber trees, grass collection, engaging in animal fattening, fruit or vegetable production, beekeeping and poultry production were the major livelihood activities practised in the allocated degraded communal land. The study also indicated that the major factors influencing the dependence level of rural landless households on allocated communal land include gender of household head, marital status of household head, distance to farmers’ training centre, livestock holding, land ownership, experience in the programme, communal land ownership type, financial support and per capita expenditure of the households. Therefore, the study concluded that even if the regional government tried to solve the problem of landlessness through hillside distribution programme, it could not sufficiently support the livelihood of the landless rural households in the study districts.