The Effects of Commercial Orientation on (Agro) Pastoralists’ Household Food Security: Evidence from (Agro) Pastoral Communities of Afar, Northeastern Ethiopia

Derib Woldeyohannes Benti,Worku Tuffa Biru,Workneh Kassa Tessema

doi:10.3390/su14020731

Derib Woldeyohannes Benti, Worku Tuffa Biru + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/su14020731

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Journal: Sustainability	Publication Date: Jan 10, 2022
Citations: 4	License type: CC BY 4.0

Affiliation: Wolaita Sodo University, Addis Ababa University

Abstract

Commercialization has been increasingly promoted for (agro) pastoral communities as an intervention to improve incomes and food access. Using households from rural Afar, this study examines the food security effects of the livestock commercial orientations of (agro) pastoralists by employing propensity score matching (PSM) procedures. The results show that, despite the fact that the market production of (agro) pastoralists is stressed by a broad range of factors, identified as cultural, infrastructural, and production risks, participation in livestock sales significantly decreased the severity of food insecurity in both the household food insecurity access score (HFIAS), and the reduced coping strategy index (rCSI) measures. However, the results failed to find consistently significant effects via the per capita consumption expenditure measure, in which case, the ‘subsistence’ and ‘commercially’ oriented groups are alike. Yet, given the factors depressing market production, properly addressed with policy measures, the income generated from livestock sales improved the welfare of (agro) pastoralists, at least by some (the HFIAS and rCSI) of the livelihood indicators. This highlights the importance of combining market infrastructure investments with culturally sensitive policy measures in order to sustain the traditional livestock husbandry of (agro) pastoralists. Therefore, in order to sustainably improve the food security situations in (agro) pastoral areas, the promotion of market production through the broadening of market access for both sales and purchases is important.

Highlights

Pastoralism, as a mode of production, contributes significantly to household energy requirements, directly, through the consumption of pastoral produce, and indirectly, through the marketing of pastoral products, which dominates over the marketing of nonpastoral foods [1]
Our analysis demonstrates that the participation in livestock marketing practices, measured in degrees of commercial orientation, has the effect of improving food security consistently in the measures of the household food insecurity access scale and the coping strategy index
On the basis of this, the results confirm that the postulated hypothesis of a positive effect of livestock commercial orientation on household food security among Aramis-Adaar pastoralists and Asale agropastoralists held, it does not with respect to the per capita consumption expenditures

Summary

Introduction

Pastoralism, as a mode of production, contributes significantly to household energy requirements, directly, through the consumption of pastoral produce (animal food sources), and indirectly, through the marketing of pastoral products, which dominates over the marketing of nonpastoral foods [1]. In the latter case, economic/market interactions between pastoralists and neighboring farming communities becomes inevitable [2], whereby pastoralists sell livestock in times of financial need in order to purchase food and other necessities to complement their food consumption [3]. Pastoralists develop market exchange interdependence and economic interactions with cultivators and highland systems [6], requiring that the pastoral economy be economically indistinguishable from settled agriculturalists [7].

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