The Determinants of Rural Households Food Security and Coping Strategies: The Case of Meta District, East Hararghe Zone of Oromia National Regional State of Ethiopia

Abstract

Africa is making slow progress in achieving international hunger targets. About 795 million people were chronically malnutrition in worldwide of which 780 million were in developing countries especially in SSA. Recent revised humanitarian requirements documents estimate that 9.7 million people in Ethiopia were in need of emergency food assistance and 420,000 children were requiring treatment for severe acute malnutrition in 2016. So, understanding the major determinants of food security is primary importance in choosing appropriate interventions for addressing the problem of food insecurity. Data on demographic and socio-economic characteristics and institutional aspects were collected from 149 households through interview schedule, key informant interviews and focus group discussion. Descriptive statistics, inferential statistics and Logit model were used for data analysis. The survey results indicate that 53.02% of the respondents were food secure, while 46.98% were food insecure. Results also indicate that there was a significant mean difference at different level of significance between the food secure and food insecure households in terms of age, sex, family size, dependency ratio, educational levels, size of cultivated land, livestock ownership excluding oxen own, off/non-farm income, cash crop produces, fertilizer user, contact with development agents, improve seeds user, distance to the nearest market and access to credit. Among 16 explanatory variables included in the logit model, 8 of them were found to be significant at different probability level, including sex, size of cultivated land and livestock ownership excluding oxen were positive effect on food security whereas, age, family size, dependent ratio, access to the nearest market and access to credit had negative effect on food security. The major portion of this study was about the determinants of rural households’ food security, it has been realized that the determinants of rural households’ food security were broad, interrelated and varies. These can be addressed by a wide comprehensive intervention from different angles of social aspects. Keywords: Food security, determinants, rural households, coping strategies, Meta, logistic regression, Ethiopia. DOI: 10.7176/IAGS/89-01 Publication date: January 31 st 2021