The impact of soil and water conservation practices on food security in eastern Ethiopia. A propensity score matching approach

Abstract

Erosion is severe in major agricultural sectors and areas of concentrated intense rainfall, such as southern Brazil, Argentina, India, eastern China, the Midwestern United States, Ethiopia, and Mediterranean Europe. To meet the world's food needs while protecting the environment, a more environmentally friendly agricultural model is needed. How much the adoption of introduced SWCP can contribute to food security is so, a puzzle that needs to be investigated today. Therefore, this research was conducted to evaluate the impact of soil and water conservation practices (SWCP) on food consumption score (FCS), and food intake in kilocalories at the household level by using 89 adopters and 161 non-adopter households. Cross-sectional data were produced from 250 samples by utilizing, a multistage sampling techniques. The causal effect of generated SWCP adoption data, were analyzed by propensity score matching model (PSM). Results gained by PSM show adoptions of introduced SWCP have an additional kilocalorie of 854.78. Concerning FCS, adopter households can obtain 7.28 scores of food frequency than their comparable groups. Since our study was limited to using analysis at the individual level and other food security indicators rather than calorie intake and FCS. Further study should be recommended concerning the impact of SWC on food security at the individual level by using multiple food security measure indicators.