Livelihood strategies, capital assets, and food security in rural Southwest Ethiopia

Abstract

Households combine capital assets in a process involving human agency and resourcefulness to construct livelihood strategies and generate well-being outcomes. Here, we (1) characterized types of livelihood strategies; (2) determined how different capital assets are associated with different livelihood strategies; and (3) determined how livelihood strategies differed in food security outcomes. We conducted a survey in southwestern Ethiopia and used principal component and cluster analyses. Five types of livelihood strategies, which differed mainly in food and cash crops comprising the strategy, were identified. These were, in order of decreasing food security: ‘three food crops, coffee and khat’, n = 68; ‘three food crops and khat’, n = 59; ‘two food crops, coffee and khat’, n = 78; ‘two food crops and khat’, n = 88; and ‘one food crop, coffee and khat’, n = 44. The livelihood strategy ‘three food crops, coffee and khat’ was associated with a wide range of capital assets, particularly having larger aggregate farm field size and learning from other farmers. A generalized linear model showed that livelihood strategies were significantly associated with food security outcomes. Particularly, a high number of food crops in a strategy was linked with relatively high food security. In this context, diversified livelihood strategies primarily through having a mix of food crops for subsistence, in combination with cash crops for income, are important for food security. This suggests a need to rethink dominant policy narratives, which have a narrow focus on increasing productivity and commercialization as the primary pathway to food security.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (10.1007/s12571-018-00883-x) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

The Influence of Income and Livelihood Diversification on Health-Related Quality of Life in Rural Ethiopia

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Mitigating Catastrophic Risks and Food Security Threats: Effects of Land Ownership in Southern Punjab, Pakistan

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Seasonality and food security among smallholder rural households in eastern Ethiopia: evidence from panel data analysis

“…As far as we know, the empirical literature in Ethiopia especially in low-land agro-ecology and detailed evidence on food and nutrition security across agricultural seasons, however, is scant. On the other hand, the literature on food security has mainly focused on cross-sectional data in Ethiopian context (Beyene 2015;Motbainor et al 2016;Dam Lam et al 2017;Mulugeta et al 2018;Habtewold 2018;Manlosa et al 2019). This study will therefore contribute to this research gap by analysing data collected from smallholder rural households during pre-harvest and post-harvest seasons in the low-land agroecology in Eastern Ethiopia.…”