Impact of large-scale agricultural investments on the food security status of local community in Gambella region, Ethiopia

Abstract

Background The government of Ethiopia has been promoting large-scale agricultural investments to accelerate agricultural modernization and improve local people’s food security. However, studies that quantify the actual impact of such investments on the food security status of the investment hosting community using diverse food security indicators and suitable impact estimation methods are scanty. The main purpose of this article is, therefore, to analyse the impact of large-scale agricultural investments on the food security status of the Anuak community in Gambella region. This study employed a quasi-experimental research design. Data were gathered from 352 households selected through a systematic sampling technique and analysed using a Propensity Score Matching technique. Results The result shows that large-scale agricultural investments have a significant negative impact on the food security status of the local community and have worsened their food insecurity problem. The investments have reduced food availability, access, and utilization of the local people and increased their vulnerability to food insecurity. Conclusions We conclude that the Ethiopian government and private investors have failed to generate the benefits that they aspire at the local level to ensure the food security of the affected community. We, therefore, suggest that the Ethiopian government should reform the sector in such a way that takes the local context into account and embraces local people so that they can directly benefit from employment opportunities, infrastructural development, and technological transfer.

Large-scale agricultural land investments and food security in Nigeria

“…These investments have decreased the local population's access to, utilisation of, and availability of food and have raised their susceptibility to food insecurity. These findings align with the results of [ 20 , 21 , 71 ].…”

“…The results revealed that the households residing in communities without land investments are more likely to be food secure by 0.2% than households in communities with. These findings concur with those of Guyalo et al [ 20 ] that found that land investments negatively impact the livelihoods and food security of the households in the communities that they exist; but contrary to that of Fitawek and Hendrick [ 29 ] who found a positive relationship between land investments and household food security. The reason for the adverse effect could be attributed to the following reasons.…”

“…It is difficult to give the phenomenon a generally agreed definition because it occurs differently in terms of the critical drivers, their sizes, and resulting outcomes in different regions where it occurs [ 41 , 42 ]. Many studies [ 20 , 43 , 44 ] that have endeavoured to analyse the concept of LIs have adopted a critical perspective, casting doubt on the potential advantages these investments might bring to the economies of the countries hosting the investments and the livelihoods of local communities. These studies argue that the phenomenon might not have the prospective to accelerate development and ends up harming them.…”

“…According to recent studies [ 20 , 21 ], large scale agricultural land investments (LIs) 1 could further affect food insecurity in Nigeria. Land investments increase land unavailability, a development that affects livelihood and food security.…”

Large-scale agricultural investment and female employment in African communities: Quantitative and qualitative insights from Nigeria

“…However, the fundamental issue in this model is that we cannot estimate. ∂i = Y 1i − Y 0i for each household i, for the reason that two potential outcomes (Y 1 − Y 0 ) for the same household cannot be observed simultaneously (Guyalo et al, 2022). The unobserved outcome is often called the counterfactual outcome (Rosenbaum and Rubin, 1983) -"What would have happened to the wages and labour hours of the households who are exposed to the investments if they had not been exposed to or experienced such event".…”