In Ethiopia, famine and extreme poverty are a result of insufficient food relief, poor macroeconomic factors, climate shocks, undiversified livelihoods based on low productivity in rain-fed agriculture, coupled with institutional incapacity. To serve as a context, this paper provides a comprehensive review of the conceptual framework of human development and capability paradigm to food security. In addition, it highlights evidence and a comparative analysis of the Asian green revolution experience, and places emphasis on sustainable and intersectoral growth through agricultural transformation and promotion of rural non-farm economy agenda to reverse the trends of protracted food crises in Ethiopia. Rapid, science-led, and employment-intensive agricultural growth, accompanied by the promotion of the rural non-farm sector, is of great importance to the rural economy. These will bring about farm sector competitiveness and enhanced productivity, environmental outcomes, acceleration of human development, new opportunities provided to the small-scale food producers, and desirable changes to the rural landscape. The study further introduces a brief analysis of the prominent role of social protection instruments in strengthening food entitlements and basic capabilities, including individual agencies. It suggests that actualizing sustainable food security and hastening human development under Ethiopia’s exclusive settings require the recognition of the rural economic heterogeneity as well as holistic and pragmatic policies, which promote sustainable and inclusive growth.
Undertaking non-agrarian income-generating activities to reduce overreliance on agriculture, production failures, and income fluctuations is a household-amenable, self-insurance mechanism, which provides employment opportunities and capital investment. This article examines the determinants of participation in non-farm activities and effect on household income. Heckman two-step procedure was used to analyze a three-wave survey data set captured from 3866 households. Crop failures, insufficient intake of food, household consumption expenditure, gender, family size, literacy, health status, farm animals holding, access to credit, total hired labor, cooperative membership and agricultural extension services were factors influencing household involvement in non-farm work. Furthermore, the findings establish that there is a decline in the likelihood of households headed by aged people, who tend to rely on subsistence farming to engage in alternative non-agrarian activities. The results of the analyses support the non-separability hypothesis of non-farm activities and household income; this implies that engaging in non-agricultural activities has a direct positive effect on household income. The omnipresence of non-agrarian income generating activities in agroecoregions requires inclusive rural development policies that focus beyond agriculture based on the recognition of the rural economic heterogeneity.
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to weigh up the effect of index-based livestock insurance (IBLI) on loan take up behavior of the pastoral households in the Borena zone of Southern Ethiopia. Although the insurance was introduced over the last decade and it appears to have promising welfare benefit, there is a lack of pragmatic evidence on its effect in leveraging the household’s future wealth for the hope of better productivity in the present.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors analyze household-level unique panel data collected in three rounds using descriptive statistics and the fixed effect model estimated by least squares dummy variable analysis.
Findings
The authors found that the IBLI appears to have a positive and significant effect on the loan uptake behavior of the herding households.
Social implications
This increased likelihood of loan uptake suggests that the insurance can reduce the cognitive cost of loan default that would occur due to weather shocks and build-up of the household’s confidence to uptake loan. Consequently, this likelihood can promote the creditworthiness of the insured and reduce his/her fear and worry regarding the possibility of loan delinquency.
Originality/value
The paper is, except where otherwise stated, entirely new work.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.