Determinants of Smallholders’ Food Security Status in Kalu District, Northern Ethiopia

Abstract

This study analyzed the determinants of rural households’ food security in the Kallu district of the Amhara region, Northern Ethiopia. The study used primary data collected from 395 randomly selected rural households. The study employed descriptive statistics and a binary logit model to estimate the status and determinants of smallholders’ food security, respectively. Of the total sample households, 47.30% are food insecure. The binary logit model results showed that sex and education level of the household head, livestock ownership, credit access, and technology adoption have positive and significant effects on food security, while age and market distance are negatively associated with the probability to be food secure. The results suggest that improving access to marketing and financial services will contribute to improving the food security status of smallholders.

Determinants of Rural Household Food Security Status in North Shewa Zone, Amhara Region, Ethiopia

“…Regarding the marginal effect, keeping other factors unchanged, one year increase in the age of the household head will result in an increase the probability of being food secure by about 0.2%. This study is consistent with [ 1 , 15 , 26 ].…”

“…The marginal effect indicates that as the number of years of schooling increases, the probability of food security increases by 2.1% relative to the counterpart. This result is in line with [ 1 , 11 ].…”

“…The marginal effect indicates that a household is located one kilometer away from the market; the probability of food security will decrease by 4.6% compared to households. This result is consistent with [ 1 , 13 ]. The empirical analysis shows that the variable off-farm activities participation has a positive and significant effect on food security status of the households; this implies that participating off farm economic activities can enable farm households to have diverse sources of income sources and they can improve their wealth situation and help them to improve food security status.…”

“…Nowadays, food security issues become one of the critical concerns and top priority areas for both developed and developing countries [ 1 ]. This shows equal importance for both developed and developing countries.…”

“…Therefore, a central policy issue for food-insecure regions of the world, concentrated in Asia and Africa, is how best to respond to the reality of food insecurity [ 2 ]. Ethiopia is one of the sub-Saharan African countries, in which the problem of food insecurity has become one of defining features of the country and is repeatedly referred to as food insecure country [ 1 ]. This is because of the highest population growth and land degradation, crop and market failures accompanied with droughts and other environment factors, political factors along with low access to assets, the incidence of poverty, and deprivation [ 3 ].…”