Aspirations and food security in rural Ethiopia

Abstract

Despite some improvements in recent years, poverty and food insecurity remain widespread and the main challenges in Ethiopia. Much of the empirical literature focuses on identifying the resource-related constraints for farmers to achieve food security and move out of poverty, with little attention paid to 'internal' or psychological factors such as aspirations. Using individual and household data collected in rural Ethiopia, we examined if aspirations were strongly associated with well-being outcomes, in our case food security, as posited in the theoretical framework of aspirations failure. We found that aspirations of the household head were positively and strongly associated with various triangulating measures of household food security including per-capita calorie consumption, the food consumption score (FCS), the household dietary diversity score (HDDS), and negatively associated with the household food insecurity access scale (HFIAS). In contrast, results suggest that the aspirations of the spouse of the household head are negatively associated with per-capita calorie consumption and FCS. We discuss the channels through which aspirations may affect food security and the avenues for future research.

Level of food consumption score and associated factors among pregnant women at SHEGAW MOTTA hospital, Northwest Ethiopia

“…Among considerably large number of factors analyzed the current study came up with the evidence of significant association between respondents' residence and religion with food consumption score during pregnancy. This is supported by a study from Nigeria, Uganda and Ethiopia in which to be rural is responsible factor for the unacceptable food consumption score [35][36][37]. High prevalence of under-nutrition and poor dietary practice among pregnant woman in rural communities of Illu Aba Bor Zone, Southwest Ethiopia [38] may also further support the finding of this research.…”

Who Wants to Farm? Answers Depend on How You Ask: A Case Study on Youth Aspirations in Kenya

“…Asking about the person with the minimum and maximum levels of each dimension within the community (the highest and lowest level of income, social status, and education) is done to anchor the individual responses (Bernard and Taffesse 2014;Kosec et al 2014;Mekonnen and Gerber 2017). However, individuals were allowed to provide answers related to their ambition that were above the maximum in their community.…”

“…The result is then multiplied by the weight each individual gives to the different indicators of ambitions. The three normalized outcomes for the different dimensions are then summed up for each individual to produce the personal aggregated ambition index (Akramov et al 2003;Kosec et al 2014;Mekonnen and Gerber 2017). The index helps to encapsulate the various ambition levels amongst individuals.…”

Mapping of Resources and Potential Development for Food-Secure Region in East Seram, Maluku Province, Indonesia

“…Therefore, poverty reduction is critical to achieve food security. Mekonnen and Gerber [2] argued that despite several years of improvement, the problem of poverty and food insecurity remains a challenge. Moreover, when people in developing countries have no capacity to adapt to climate change, it will make a bigger challenge.…”

“…Food security consists of four main sub-systems namely food availability, food access, food utilization, and stability. In this study, food utilization is defined as safe and nutritious food which meets the dietary needs, so nutritional status has effect on food security [2]. Food access and utilization can be achieved if community has the capacity to carry out productive activities to increase their income to access safe and nutritious food.…”