Analysis of the Significance of Fishing on Food Security Status of Rural Households Around Lake Ziway and Langano in Ethiopia

Abstract

This research work was conducted to investigate the significance of fishing on food security status of rural households around Lake Ziway and Langano in Ethiopia. The studied districts were selected using purposive sampling, as they are adjacent to the two lakes. Simple random sampling was employed to select 344 rural households for primary data collection. For this particular work, respondents were further classified into food secured fishing households and food insecure non-fishing households by employing food security index method. As a result, 156 households were identified constituting of 51.3% food secure fishing households and 48.7% food insecure non-fishing households.

The range of data collected were comprises of household socio-economic characteristics, food production, food consumption, food purchases, fish income, non-fish income, and the like. Data analysis were made using descriptive statistics, food security index and the propensity score matching.

Descriptive statistics examines distribution and socioeconomic characteristics of respondents using frequency distribution tables. Considering, the equivalent male adult scale and energy composition of foods commonly consumed by average household, the food security index was computed. Accordingly, the available food energy was 31234kcal and 9283kcal for the food secure fishing household and food insecure non-fishing household, respectively. On the contrary, the required food energy was greater for the food insecure household as compared to the food secure once, indicating 14145kcal and 12523kcal, respectively. The mean difference were significant at 5% level.

To examine the impact of fishing on food security status of rural household we employed the propensity score matching method. This has been used to balance the observed distribution of covariate across the food secured fishing and food insecure non-fishing household. Balancing test was made after matching that ascertained absence of significant differences in covariate between fishing and non-fishing households in the matched sample. Thus, the matched comparison groups were considered to be a plausible counterfactual. Accordingly, the result of impact analysis verified the significance of fishing on food energy intake of average household using the matched samples. In this regards, food secured fishing household was able to obtain extra energy from food consumption as compared to the non-fishing food insecure counterpart indicating ATT of 27375 kcal and 27213 kcal using KBM and NNM algorithms, respectively. The results were statistically significant at 5% level. Consequently, the stability of the findings were tested using Rosenbaum bounds approach that confirmed absence of hidden bias due to unobserved confounders, thus supporting  the positive treatment effect of fishing activity.

In this regard; promotion of income diversification opportunities, awareness promotion on family planning and in-depth investigation of household food security situation were suggested.

Keywords: Lake Ziway, Lake Langano, Food security, Energy intake,  PSM, ATT,  Ethiopia