Analysis of Household Food Insecurity and its Covariates in Girar Jarso Woreda, Oromia Regional State, Ethiopia

Abstract

Food insecurity are the most crucial and persistent problems facing humanity. What so ever the struggle to achieve food security at the household level in the rural areas of Ethiopia dates back a long period, it has remained a challenging goal even today. Making their living on marginal, moisture stressed, heavily degraded and less productive land, households in rural areas of Girar Jarso face persistent food shortages. This study aims to analyze the status and determinants of household food insecurity in four PAs of Girar Jarso wereda. An attempt to fill in the research gap observed in food insecurity studies at disaggregated level in Ethiopia, this study was carried out. The analysis was based on survey data gathered from randomly selected 120 sample rural households using a three stage sampling techniques. Both primary and secondary data were used for the study. Data collection was conducted through interview schedules, FGD and key informant interviews. The data collected were analyzed and discussed using descriptive statistics, Foster – Greer – Thorbecke (FGT) indices, logit regression model. The headcount, depth and severity of food insecurity respectively were found to be 37.5%, 10.9% and 4.19%. The empirical results estimated using the survey data revealed that total annual income, total off-farm income and number of oxen at less than 1% level of probability; family size, at less than 10% and access to extension services at less than 5 % level of probability showed theoretically consistent and statistically significant effect on food insecurity among rural households. However, estimated coefficients of age, sex, education, dependency ratio, total size of cultivated land, TLU, access to credit and owning saving account were found to be statistically insignificant in determining household food insecurity in the study area. The findings imply that improvement in food security situation needs to have comprehensive combination of interventions aiming at income diversification in rural areas such as off-farm activities, promoting family planning, promoting education, and commercialization among others. These areas could provide entry points for policy intervention to reduce food insecurity and augment livelihood opportunities.

Keywords: Food insecurity, Foster-Greer-Thorbecke (FGT), logit regression, Girar Jarso