Assessment of Household Food Security and Its Determinants in Minjar Shenkora and Ada’a woredas of Central Ethiopia

Abstract

Food security issues become one of the critical concerns and top priority areas for Ethiopia. This study analyzed rural households’ food security status and its determinants in Minjar Shenkora woreda of Amhara Regional State and Ada’a woreda of Oromia Regional State. Data were collected from 240 randomly selected rural farm households. The study employed both descriptive statistics and a binary logistic regression model to estimate the status and determinants of households’ food security, respectively. The findings indicated that the average dietary energy available for food secured households was 2,860.6 kilo calorie per day while 1,891.7 kilo calorie per day for the insecure group. According to the findings of the binary logit model, factors such as education level, farm size, livestock ownership, cooperatives membership, off-farm income and credit access have positive and significant effects on household food security. While household size has a negative and significant effect on household food security. The results recommend that interventions should target at improving rural financial services and off-farm activities that increase households’ income and focusing on those most significant variables when attempting to enhance household food security.