Livelihood Strategies and Food Security of Rural Households in Wolaita Zone, Southern Ethiopia

Abstract

Despite the continuing economic dominance of agriculture in Wolaita, farm households widely engage in and pursue diverse livelihood activities to generate income and achieve food security. The major objectives of this study are to analyze households’ food security status as an outcome of livelihood strategies and identify factors affecting food security of rural farm households. For the purpose of this study primary data were collected from randomly selected 300 households in four woredas of the zone. The main tools of analysis for this study include descriptive statistics and logistic regression model. The finding of the survey result indicates that rural households in the study area practice diversified livelihood strategies, in that large part of the respondents (57.7%) combine agriculture with other activities (non/off-farm). Food security status of the households was analyzed based on nationally recommended calorie requirement (2200kcal) of the households. Based on this, about 57% of the sample households found to be food insecure. The relationship b/n rural households’ livelihood strategies and food security status depicted that majority of food secured households (62%) rely on farming alone as one of most important livelihood strategies. On the contrary, non-farming and off-farming activities were the common livelihood means which specifically practiced by food insecure households. Binary logit model results reveal that out of 25 explanatory variables included in the logistic model, 12 were found to be significant at less than 10% probability level. According to this, education, family size in AE, cultivated land size, frequency of extension visit, access for credit, access to farm plus off-farm activities, access to farm plus non-farm and off-farm activities, safety net aid, use of chemical fertilizer, cooperative membership and agro-ecological zone were found to be the most important determinants affecting the state of food security positively. On the other hand, family size in AE was found negatively and significantly affected food security status of the household. The finding of the study considers government and other concerned bodies to design appropriate development policies and strategies in relation to significant variables to bring sustainable livelihood improvement in attaining household food security goals.

Keywords: Livelihood strategies, determinants of food security, rural households, binary logit model, Woliata, Ethiopia