The Role of Livelihood Diversification for Household Food Security: The Case of Kebridahar District, Korahey Zone of Somali Region, Eastern Ethiopia

Abstract

The majority of the Ethiopia populations live in a rural area which their livelihood heavily depends on rain-fed agriculture. The rainfall pattern of the area is fluctuating from season to season, which causes food insecurity problems. The rural people of the study area participated different income-generating activities but it seems ineffective. To investigate the impact of livelihood diversification on household’s food security in study area, multi-stage sampling methods was employed to select 119 representative household heads from kebridahar district. The collected data were analyzed by using descriptive statistic and econometric model of probit Logistic Regression was used for this. The data analysis tools were conducted such as Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) versions 20 and STATA Software. The study HHs 77.3 % of them said that participating in different livelihood activities has a positive impact for household food security whereas 22.7 % of them responded that participating difference livelihood activities have no longer impact on household food security because it needs start-up capital. The livelihood diversification impacted household food security among MHHs and FHHs differently. The main source of food in the study households categorized as 10.1% of them depends food from the own production, 79% of them depends food from their Purchase whereby, 10.9% of them depends their food source for government support. In this study 54.6% of the sampled households was food secure, whereby 45.4% of them was food insecure with 3140.19 kcal and 1437.54kcal intake respectively. The model revealed that sex being female head and limited extension contact was negatively impacted HH food security whereas, education level of household head and livestock holding positively impacted household food security. It can conclude livelihood diversification play great role for improving the household’s food security status as a whole. Therefore the household’s should contribution in different income generating activities as implication of household food security. Keywords : food security, livelihood diversification, probit regression model, DOI: 10.7176/JBAH/12-17-01 Publication date: September 30 th 2022