Abstract
Food security is one of the critical concerns and top priority of policy agenda for developing countries. Having clear picture on food security status and its determinants helps policy makers to devise appropriate policies that enhance food security. Hence, this study aims to determine the food security status of the households, status, gap and severity of food insecurity among rural households and its determinants in Oda Bultum district of West Hararghe zone, Oromia National Regional State. The data for this study were collected from primary and secondary sources. Primary data were collected from randomly selected 365 sample households by using multistage sampling procedure and secondary data were obtained from various sources. The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, Foster-Greer-Thorbecke (FGT) and probit model. The survey results indicated that 38.9% sampled households were food secured whilst 61.1% were food insecure. Further analysis of Probit regression revealed that; sex of household head, educational level, household size, donkey ownership, cash crop production, off/non-farm income, income, access to irrigation and frequency of extension contact significantly increased probability of being food secure. This study recommends that rural households should be encouraged to increase off/non-farm income, work on household size by applying family planning, increasing frequency of extension contact, increasing cash crop productivity, increasing access to irrigation, increasing income, donkey possession and improvement of the educational level for the household heads in order to enhance households’ food security status in the study area. Keywords: Food security, Agro-pastoralist, Sedentary farming, Probit, Oda Bultum DOI: 10.7176/JESD/12-17-03 Publication date: September 30 th 2021
Highlights
These days, food insecurity is a global problem
Study area is considered as food insecure district by the government; in line with this, the result of the study shows that 61.1% of the surveyed households were unable to get the minimum daily energy requirement
The mean energy gained by food secure and food insecure households were 2488.49 and 2008.3
Summary
These days, food insecurity is a global problem. Acknowledging that, the world is struggling to address since decades back. It is still far away from a decisive victory. In this regard, FAO (2016) indicated that despite undeniable progress in reducing rates of undernourishment and improving levels of nutrition and health, about 800 million people are chronically hungry. Among 800 million globally under chronically hunger people, 239 million are from Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) and nearly two billion people are affected by hidden hunger (WHO, 2016). FAO (2016) predicts that the world will host about 653 million undernourished people even in 2030 if no additional efforts are made to promote pro-poor development
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