Determinants of Food Insecurity and the Choice of Livelihood Strategies: The Case of Abay Chomen District, Oromia Regional State, Ethiopia

Abstract

Most of the sub-Saharan African countries including Ethiopia were affected by the food insecurity issue. This study aimed to analyze the drivers of food insecurity, the choice of livelihood strategies, and factors that impact the choices of food security strategies in response to food insecurity in Abay Chomen District of Ethiopia’s Oromia region, Ethiopia. The result of this study is based on primary data and obtained from 150 randomly chosen sample households and secondary data generated from various sources. As for the technique of data analysis, this study employed descriptive statistics for the food insecurity index, as well as a binary logistic model and a multinomial logit model for the choice of household livelihood techniques. The findings of the survey showed that 51.3% of the households were found to be food-insecure and 48.7% food-safe in the study area. Furthermore, the result indicated that the average calorie consumption of the households surveyed was 2008.54 kcal for each adult equivalent per day, which is below the lowest calorie necessity of 2200 kcal. The estimated logistic model outcome on the drivers of household food insecurity confirmed the oldness of the household leader, larger family holder, and off-farm income affects negatively, while the gender of the household leader, the size of the built-up area, the number of livestock holdings (except oxen), the number of oxen owned, access to credit, the participation in the sale of cattle, and others affect positively. In addition, the multinomial logit model result indicates that the educational status of the household leader, the size of livestock farming, the number of oxen possessed, access to credit, remoteness to the market, and monthly agricultural earning are the main drivers of the choice of livelihood strategies of concern for the food insecurity of households. As a result, this research attempted to produce a result of analysis with a defined scope, although many questions remain unsolved. Future studies should concentrate on presenting fundamental data on the factors that affect food security status and livelihood strategy, the social, political, natural, and environmental aspects, the descriptive information on the shopping habits of people who experience food insecurity, and the key aspects that increase the vulnerability of the rural poor to food insecurity.

Determinants of Household Choice of Livelihood Diversification Strategies in Selected Drought Prone Areas of the Southern Nations Nationalities and Peoples’ Region, Ethiopia

“…Hence, households with larger dependency ratio should diversify their livelihood strategy so as to earn additional income for fulfilling their family felt needs. This result coincides with the findings of [22] who reported that families with larger dependency ratio have idler and non-productive family members with larger demand for food and other obligatory family needs. However, this result contradicts with the finding of [9] which reported "household with larger dependency ratio faced shortage of working hands to earn from diversified activities for meeting their family needs".…”

Factors affecting the change of agricultural livelihoods of farmers adapting to water resource reduction in the highland area in An Giang province, Vietnam

“…Agricultural machinery (X3) and Relationship with friends and relatives (X5) have also been referenced by Liu and Liu [19]. The variable Income household (X4) has been discussed by Gebissa and Geremew [20]. Farmer perception (X1.3) has been addressed by Okonya et al [21].…”

“…When farmers have good financial conditions, they are more likely to invest capital in new farming activities. Household income positively impacts their livelihood choices, making it easier for them to invest and overcome financial constraints to make a new model [20].…”

Nutrition security and traditional food markets in Africa: gender insights

“…Previous research relating to nutrition and traditional food markets has tended to focus more on an agricultural perspective. For example, how agriculture and livestock practices are associated with market access and income and in turn how this is linked to food and nutrition insecurity (Gebissa and Geremew, 2022;Sibhatu et al, 2022). Affordability and access to foods in markets and income have been found to be associated with food security (Keding et al, 2017;McCordic et al, 2019;Middendorf et al, 2021).…”

“…Some studies have demonstrated the relevance of the gender of the head of a household in nutrition and food security in respect of decision making around access to resources and labor (Ochieng et al, 2017). Differences are also seen between males and females, regarding income generation, market access, and finances due to different roles in markets and duties outside of food production and acquisition (Gebissa and Geremew, 2022;Milner et al, 2022;Sibhatu et al, 2022). Markets can provide space for women to be involved in food purchasing and income generation, but this research is still limited (Davies et al, 2022).…”