This article analyzes the vulnerability and resilience levels of farm households in North Shewa, Ethiopia, using a survey of 452 households. Agro ecological based classification was done to analyze vulnerability to climate change induced shocks. Integrated vulnerability analysis approach was employed to develop indexes for socioeconomic and biophysical indicators. The indicators have been classified into adaptive capacity, exposure and sensitivity to climate change impact. Then Principal Component Analysis was used to compute vulnerability index of each agro ecological zone. The result shows that farmers living in the highland areas were very much vulnerable to natural shocks compared to those living in the lowland area. In order to identify and analyse the determinants of resilience to climate change impacts, ordered probit model was used. Households were classified into three categories based on the time they take to bounce back after natural shocks. The model outputs indicate that farmers with better investment on natural resource management, access to market, better social network, access to credit, preparedness, saving liquid assets, access to irrigation and better level of education exhibited greater level of resilience during and after climate change induced shocks

Background: Tomato has significant economic importance in Ethiopia. Although quantitative evidence is limited, postharvest loss in tomato is considerably high. This study presents qualitative and quantitative postharvest losses of tomato. The study was conducted in 2015 in two districts (Bora and Dugda) located in East Shewa Zone of Oromia National Regional State, Ethiopia, located southeast of Addis Ababa. Primary data were collected from producers (smallholder farmers) and traders via household survey, focus group discussions and key informant interviews as well as estimation of losses based on samples. Secondary data and information were collected from published and unpublished sources. Results:Results indicate that tomato production is being done by relatively young married individuals who have at least primary level education. About three-quarter of land holding is allocated for vegetable production, which largely takes place under irrigation during dry season. All sample producers sold more than 95% of their tomato produce, mostly to wholesalers as compared to collectors and retailers. Postharvest losses occur at collectors, wholesalers and retailers level. The finding indicates that more than 16% of respondents encounter produce losses due to high incidence of diseases, insect pest and mechanical injuries, each of them accounting for more than 20% of postharvest losses. Conclusions:The findings from our study underscore that the ability of actors to mitigate postharvest losses is limited due to lack of technical know-how. They also lack necessary support and complementary resources to improve postharvest handling practices and technology.

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This study examined the patterns of rural household savings in East Hararghe zone of Oromia National Regional State in Ethiopia. The major objective of the study was to assess the patterns and its determinants of household savings in the study area. Data were collected from a total of 700 sample households which were also analyzed using descriptive statistics and multinomial logit model. The result of the study signified that 38.5, 23.4, and 38.1% of the sample households have saved in physical assets only, financial form only, and both in physical assets and financial forms, respectively. The result from the econometric model used indicated that, credit access, contact with development agents, leadership role of household heads in the community, information access and membership in microfinance institutions have a significant impact on savings in financial forms only. Whereas, livestock holdings of household in TLU, annual farm income in Birr and leadership role of household heads in the community have a significant effect on the choice of both financial savings and physical saving forms, as compared to saving in physical form only. This study indicated that, the rural households in the study area mainly use the physical forms for savings. However, this savings in physical forms in the study area was not accessed by the formal financial system of the country. Therefore, the study recommends the physical savings of the rural households should be accessed and encouraged to augment gross domestic saving of the country.

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