Impact assessment of agricultural technologies on household food consumption and dietary diversity in eastern Ethiopia

Abstract

Food insecurity remains a major challenge to rural households in Eastern Ethiopia. To improve food and nutrition security of vulnerable households in eastern Ethiopia, several agricultural technologies have been scaled-up by Haramaya University for more than six decades. However, the impact of these technologies on household nutritional outcomes was not systematically studied. This study examined the impact of selected agricultural technologies on household food and nutrition security. Cross-sectional data were generated from 248 randomly selected rural households. Of these, 52% were non-users of improved agricultural technologies disseminated by the university while the remaining 48% sample respondents were users. The data generated from the field were analyzed using Propensity Score Matching (PSM) procedure and descriptive statistics. Results from the econometric analysis result show that households that adopted agricultural technologies had, on average, 8.97 higher Food Consumption Score (FCS) and 1.22 higher Household Dietary Diversity Score (HDDS) compared to those not using improved technologies. This shows that households adopting agricultural technologies are more likely to have higher food security compared to non-users. This suggests that promotion of improved agricultural technologies in the study area can enhance household food and nutrition security. • Improved agricultural technologies play vital role in rural household economies. • Households adopting improved agricultural technologies have higher HDDS and FCS. • Adopter households are more likely to have higher food security status. • Promoting improved agricultural technologies should be a priority for stakeholders.