Determinants Of Food Security In Kilte Awelalo, Ethiopia

Transcription

1 Volume 3 Issue 11, October 2016 ISSN: Determnants Of Food Securty In Klte Awelalo, Ethopa Tnsaye Tamerat Ph.D. Canddate, Department of Socal Work, Assam Unversty Slchar Abstract: Majorty of globe's poor n most developng countres lve n rural areas majorly dependng on underszed farms as man source for ncome and food. Improvng agrcultural productvty of these smallholdng farmers s one means of enhancng households' food securty. Food nsecurty and undernourshment are present crucal polcy challenges n Ethopa. The study's man am s to assess the determnng factors of smallholdng farmers n ther strve to acheve food securty. Klte Awelalo was taken as a study area and three Tabas were selected. The total sample number of households from these three Tabas was 370 and a formal ntervew schedule was employed to collect relevant prmary nputs. Accordngly, the study found varables lke land sze, educatonal attanment, lvestock holdngs, rrgaton and partcpaton n formal and nformal nsttutons as major mpactng factors. Keywords: Rural Food Securty, Lvelhoods, BMI I. INTRODUCTION Majorty of globe's poor n most developng countres lve n rural areas majorly dependng on underszed farms as man source for ncome and food. Improvng agrcultural productvty of these smallholdng farmers s one means of enhancng households' and natonal food securty. Food securty s a growng concern for majorty developng natons n the globe and smlarly food nsecurty and undernourshment are present crucal polcy challenges n Ethopa. Accordng to A. Sen, (1981) food securty has gone beyond the noton of physcal food supply so as to ncorporate access whch s determned by food enttlements, vulnerablty and sustanablty. For developng natons as a whole, the total share of undernourshed people n the total populaton has declned from 23.3% n to 12.9%. A pronounced declne n number of undernourshed was perceved majorly from developng natons despte the sgnfcant populaton growth (FAO, 2015). The SubSaharan Afrca has the hghest prevalence of undernourshment though there has been seen a betterment n the last two decades. Undernourshment has declned from 32.7% to 24.8% n The fve countres n Afrca wth the hghest undernourshment are Ethopa, Tanzana, Ngera, Kenya and fnally Uganda (Brara E., 2015). Ethopa s frequently affected by food defcts where on average 5 mllon people requre food ad each year. Addtonal to ths, due to Elnno mpact, the number of populaton who are n need of drect food ad has ncreased to 15 mllon (Federal Democratc Republc of Ethopa, 2015). Varous factors can be put n plan words towards the ncreasng food nsecurty condton n Ethopa. The nteracton between hgh populaton growth pressure, fragmentaton of land holdng szes, envronmental degradatons and others have led to a very sgnfcant declne on household's crop productvty and food securty condton. Combnng these aforementoned challenges wth recurrng droughts over years, have substantally eroded the productve assets of households where by affectng communty assets lke forests and pasture leadng to an escalatng envronmental degradaton and hgh pressure on farm. In smlar lnes, smallholder farmers are unable to cope up wth seasonal shortfalls because of less accumulaton of savngs and assets lke food and lvestock holdngs, even n good days. The major objectve of ths study s assess the major determnng factors of food securty basng on the prmary data collected by usng ntervew schedule from 370 smallholdng farmers n selected areas n Klte Awelalo Woreda. Concomtantly, the study has tred to hghlght major determnants food securty n the study areas n three major Page 203

2 Volume 3 Issue 11, October 2016 ISSN: categores; Adequacy n supply by Months of Adequate Household Food Provsonng (MAHFP), consumpton by Food consumpton Score and fnally utlzaton determnants by usng BMI (Body mass ndex). II. MODEL SPECIFICATION For ths study, food securty determnants model has been desgned n three phases accordngly to the three major food securty components; Access, Avalablty and utlzaton. Household's Food Consumpton Score (FCS) value s used as a dependent varable to see households access to suffcent and nutrtous food. Food Access (FA) = Food Consumpton Score (FCS) + ϵ 1 Food access (FA) s not observable where as food consumpton score (FCS) s observable, and thus FA s the latent varable. Therefore, by employng the typcal threshold food consumpton score as a base, If FA < 21 (P) Poor food consumpton If 21<FA <35 (B) Borderlne food consumpton..2 If FA >35 (A) Acceptable food consumpton We can follow to estmate lkelhood functon n form of assumng the error terms are ndependent Food Avalablty (FAV) = Months of Adequate Household Food Provsonng (MAHFP) + ϵ 4 MAHFP s count type whch s the number of months where a gven household has adequate food provson for ts household members. Y e f (Y )...5 Y! Where Y= 0, 1, 2, 3,. Y! s "Y factoral" where Y!=Y x (Y1) x (Y2) x 2 x 1 Accordngly, the Posson regresson model s gven by; e y Prob(Y y x ) y!..6 Where the Y s the count ndex of months of adequate food avalablty n a gven year and X are ndependent varables whch determne the number of months of adequate food supply. The, loglkelhood functon s as follows; n ln L y x ' ln y! 1 7 Regardng food utlzaton of households, a body mass ndex (weght for heght) s used as a dependent varable to assess the utlzaton whch s the thrd component of food securty. BMI (Utlzaton) = X 0 β 0 + ε. 8 Where X 0 and β 0, represent observed ndependent varables and ther parameters respectvely. The error vector (ε) represents the average effect of all unobserved varables. Takng the natural logarthm of both sdes, we wll get the log lkelhood functon (LL), 9 LL ln[ P( X )] ln[ 1 P( X )] Y 1 Y 0 A range of demographc and socoeconomc varables that are expected to nfluence or else determne the household food securty status were ncorporated as ndependent varables. III. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION In Ethopa, the debate over the causes and determnants of food nsecurty has stmulated a hghly antagonstc vewponts between the development thnkng and the academc dscplnes over the past few decades, gvng a rse to prolferaton of economc, demographc, cultural and poltcal promnence across food securty lteratures. The root factors of the problem at household, regonal and natonal level are quet complex. The key causes can be grouped nto three major types as socoeconomc, natural causes and polcy factors (Ells F., 2000). Wth regard to determnng factors of food consumpton pattern among the smallholdng farmers, 8 varables were found to have a sgnfcant mpact on the probablty of better food consumpton. Food Con Coef. Std. Err. Z P>z [95% Interval] dy/dx SC. Conf. _Iedun_ *** _Iedun_ *** _Iedun_ HH sze ** Land sze * _Ifertlt~ _Ifertlt~ * Man Mkt * Dst. Irrgaton * Improved seed Safety net Total * lvestock Offfarm act ** _cons Probt regresson Number of obs = 370 LR ch2(13) = Prob > ch2 = Log lkelhood = Pseudo R2 = Margnal effects after Probt y = Pr(Food Con. SC.) (predct) = Source: Survey result, 2016 NOTICE: *, ** and *** sgnfcant at 1%, 5% and 10% sgnfcance levels, respectvely Table 1: Estmates of MaxmumLkelhood Probt model of Food Consumpton Score The sgnfcant varables were Educaton level, Household sze, hgher fertlty, dstance from man market, rrgaton, lvestock holdngs and offfarm actvtes partcpaton. The study found an nverse relaton between household sze and food consumpton score of households mplyng as the number of household sze ncreases by 1, food consumpton of a household decreases by 7.7%. Household sze s a very crucal factor n determnng food avalablty condton at household level especally n rural areas lke of the study areas'. As the number of member lvng under the same roof ncreases, the number of mouths to be fed ncreases Page 204

3 Volume 3 Issue 11, October 2016 ISSN: where by decreasng the food avalablty of the household (Ells F., 2000). It was also found farm land has a hgh sgnfcance where households wth an addtonal farm land sze of 0.25 Ha have a 32.2% better chance ncreasng ther food consumpton. Other smlar studes have also revealed farm land sze as one of the major sgnfcant factors whch stands as a mark for the wealth dfference among households n the study areas (Stephen D., 2010). Moreover, the survey revealed that comparng households wth a hghly fertle farm land to the households wth a less fertle land, food consumpton score of households wth a fertle farm land ncreases by 68.8%. Fertlty level of the farm land s also one bg factor whch plays an mportant role n the food avalablty condton of households (Kdane, H., Alemu, Z.,& Kundhlande G., 20). Furthermore, the estmated dstance from the man market to the households' resdence was also found to be hghly sgnfcant at 1% level of sgnfcance, as dstance ncreases by 1km, food consumpton score of households ncreases by 17.1%. The smallholdng farmers n the study areas are hghly dependent on ran fed agrculture as majorty of them are hghly unaware and ncapable to afford and employ rrgaton system n ther producton. Correspondngly, the study found that rrgaton s one of the hghly decsve and postvely sgnfcant factor at 1% level of sgnfcance where food consumpton score of households who are employng rrgaton s superor by 55.3% than those who do not employ. The total number of lvestock holdng measured n total lvestock unt was found to be hghly sgnfcant at 1% sgnfcance level and as the number of total lvestock holdngs ncreases by 1 lvestock unt, food consumpton score ncreases by 8.7%. MAHF Coef. P Age Sex _Iedun_ _Iedun_ _Iedun_ HH sze Cultv. Land sze _Ifertlt ~2 _Ifertlt ~3 Total lv. No of oxen Irrgato n Improve d sd Agr. Ext. Safety net Std. Err Z P>z dy/dx Std. Err. z P> z X * ** *** *** *** *** ** *** Fertlze r Forcredt Food ad Offfarm act 91 _cons * Posson regresson Number of obs = 370 LR ch2(19) = Prob > ch2 = Log lkelhood = Pseudo R2 = Margnal effects after Posson y = predcted number of events (predct) = Source: Survey result, 2015 NOTICE: *, ** and *** sgnfcant at 1%, 5% and 10% sgnfcance levels, respectvely Table 7.2: Estmates of MaxmumLkelhood Posson regresson of MAHFP MAHFP ndcator tres to capture the changes n households' ablty to deal wth vulnerablty n such a way to guarantee that food s avalable above mnmum level all year round. Households below the food poverty threshold generally have less than 9months (ACF, 2010). The Posson regresson revealed that from 16 explanatory varables, 9 of them; Age, Educaton, Cultvated land sze, Fertlty, Irrgaton, Improved seed, Fertlzer, Access to agrculture extenson servce and Food ad were found to be sgnfcant n mpactng the MAHFP n the study areas. Age of the household head was found to be sgnfcant at 10% level of sgnfcance, and the margnal effect mples that a one year ncrement n the age of the household head, households wll have a months (6 days per month) better MAFHP. Though, age of the household head s sgnfcant statstcally, but polcy wse t s a twaddle. Wth regard to the educatonal attanment of the household head, educaton level of "Read and Wrte" was found to be sgnfcant at 5% level of sgnfcance. Household heads wth educatonal level of "Read and Wrte", were found to have a negatve relaton wth MAFHP. Household heads wth ths educatonal level were found to have MAHFP of less 1.7 months n a gven year. Regardng to the cultvated land sze of households, t was found to be hghly sgnfcant at 1% sgnfcance level wth a postve relaton where households wth an addtonal of 0.25Ha cultvated land were found to have MAFHP of addtonal 10.5 days. The extent of land fertlty s also one of the hghly sgnfcant determnants and household wth a hghly fertle land were found to have MAHFP of addtonal 1.56 months wthn a year. Moreover, rrgaton was also found to be a hghly determnng factor of MAHFP postvely at 1% level of sgnfcance and t was found that MAHFP of households who use rrgaton s hgher wth 1.9 months. Furthermore, households who employ fertlzer were found to have a hgher MAHFP of 2.03 months. Lastly, households who partcpate n food ad programs were found to have a better MAHFP wth 0.6 month comparng to those who do not. A study conducted n Laelay Machew woreda, Tgray regon revealed that out of 16 selected explanatory varables to analyze total calore avalablty (adult equvalent/day) only 5 varables were found to be hghly sgnfcant; age of household head, number of Total Lvestock Unt / Household, use of mproved seeds, number of adult equvalent/household and the farm land sze n hectare were found to be hghly sgnfcant. Famly sze also contrbuted to devastatng household food nsecurty n the Woreda (Shshay K. and Messay M., 2014). Page 2

4 Volume 3 Issue 11, October 2016 ISSN: For ths study to assess the determnng factors of nutrtonal adequacy and the root causes for energy defcency n the selected sample households n the three study areas, Body Mass Index (BMI) was employed. The body mass ndex, as the name mples t s the rato between weght and heght squared and s a good parameter to evaluate chronc energy defcency. Informaton on the nutrtonal status of a communty s crucal to have a wderangng dea about development process, as under nutrton s one of the major health dlemmas of most developng countres (Dpak K. et.al, 2006) Log BMI Coef. Std. Err. t P>t _IAge~ * _IAge~ * 25 _IAge~ * 45 _IAge~ * 64 _IAge~> * _Iedun~ * _Iedun~ _Iedun~ * _Iedun~ _Iedun~ * Household * sze Farmland * sze Total lvestock MAHFP FCS Man Road Offfarm Actvty Food ad * Safety net Agr Extenson Improved ** Seed Fertlzer Irrgaton * _cons Source: Survey result, 2015 NOTICE: *, ** and *** sgnfcant at 1%, 5% and 10% sgnfcance levels, respectvely Table 3: LogLnear regresson result for Determnants of BMI The study found varous sgnfcant varables such as educaton level, household sze, land sze, food ad and use of mproved seeds and rrgaton. Regardng educaton attanment, "Read and Wrte" and "912 level" were found to be sgnfcant postvely at 1% level of sgnfcance and ts coeffcent reveals that as a household member educaton level ncreases to "Read and wrte", BMI wll also ncrease by 5.6%. Household sze was also found to be hghly postvely sgnfcant at 1% level of sgnfcance on BMI of households n the study areas. That s as the number of household member ncrease by one, BMI also ncreases by 0.6%. Though household sze s sgnfcant statstcally, but polcy wse t s lmted due to ts very low mpact on BMI of households. Land sze was also found to be hghly sgnfcant at 1% level of sgnfcance whch determnes the BMI of households n the study areas. Surprsngly, the effect of land sze holdngs on BMI was found to be negatve mplyng a more land sze leads to a more labor force and energy and statstcally t was found that as land sze s ncreased by 0.25ha BMI decreases by 1.%. Households who are partcpatng n food ad programs have a less BMI, where statstcally t was found that food ad partcpants have a less BMI by 7.65% that those who do not. IV. CONCLUSION Ethopa s perhaps well known as the destnaton of some of the devastatve famnes n Afrcan hstory; as a symbol for a contemporary Afrcan poverty and falure of governance. The country s facng severe problems of food nsecurty whch manfests tself as the lowest klocalore per capta ntake n Afrca. The Tgray regonal state where the study stes were located has also one of the poorest regonal economes record n the country. Vast number of households n the regon were only able to produce suffcent food for less than sx months of the year to meet ther basc requrements. Takng ths nto consderaton, the study has tred to depct the mpactng factors basng on the three ndces whch were employed to assess the food securty status of the smallholdng farmers n Tgray regon. It was found that eght varables were havng a sgnfcant mpact on food consumpton patterns of the farmers, namely; educaton level, household sze, hgh land fertlty, dstance from man market, rrgaton, total number of lvestock, and partcpaton n offfarm actvtes. Regardng Months of Adequate Household Food Provsonng (MAHFP) nne varables were found to have a sgnfcant mpact. These varables were age, educaton level, land sze, farmers wth hghly fertle land, rrgaton, mproved seed, fertlzer, access to agrculture extenson servce and food ad were found to be sgnfcant n mpactng the MAHFP n the study areas. Fnally, concernng the determnng factors of Body Mass Index (BMI) of household members, educaton level, household sze, land sze, food ad and use of mproved seeds and rrgaton were found to be sgnfcant at dstnct levels of sgnfcance. V. SUGGESTIONS One of the most crucal step s the need for a more collaboraton of government bodes wth NGO's, cvl socety groups and the prvate sector to promote people's partcpaton and to make the whole process of mplementaton transparent and accountable to people. The nvolvement of women n economc actvtes s very neglgble and formaton of selfhelp groups n the communtes wll help them to act Page 206

5 Volume 3 Issue 11, October 2016 ISSN: collectvely towards meetng ther lvelhood needs. Cash crops producton should be encouraged by development agents n the study areas through provson of mproved seeds, materal support and market lnkages coupled wth tranngs on entrepreneural and commercal sklls. Count of landless and underszed farmland holdngs was hghly prevalent and polces should be desgned or revson of land reform polces are necessary to ncrease per household farmland holdng szes such as voluntary resettlement programs and others. Especal emphass should be gven for cash for work programs to protect households majorly from productve assets depleton and n parallel the n exchange cash provson should be ncreased n way that can at least provde the mnmum poverty wage. Modern agrcultural nputs such as rrgaton, mproved seeds and fertlzers should be more provded n a subsdzed manner coupled wth tranngs on ther adopton especally wth regard to rrgaton. Agrcultural extenson tranngs and vsts need to be redesgned n a way that won t affect workng tme and other crucal tmes of the smallholdng farmers. Lastly, habtual food consumpton patterns should loosen up through tranngs and awareness creaton programs on nutrtonal values of food for an enhanced food consumpton pattern. REFERENCES [1] ACF, (2011). Food Securty and Lvelhood Assessments, A practcal gude for Feld workers. Techncal Department of Food Securty and Lvelhoods. Joseph Ferruz Prntng Assocates, Inc, Uganda. [2] Brara E., (2015). Assessment of Food Securty Stuaton n Ethopa. World Journal of Dary & Food Scences 10 (1): 3743, ISSN X, IDOSI Publcatons, Bahr Dar Unversty, Bahr Dar, Ethopa. [3] CSA, (2013). Ethopa Rural Socoeconomc Survey. A survey report by Central Statstcal Agency & the World Bank, Ethopa. [4] Dpak K. et.al., (2006). Assessment of Nutrtonal Status through Body Mass Index (BMI) among adult Males of 7Trbal Populatons of Maharashtra. Anthropologcal Survey of Inda, c/o Department of Anthropology, Dr. H.S. Gour Unversty, Madhya Pradesh, Inda. [5] Ells F., (2000). Rural Lvelhoods and Dversty n Developng Countres, Oxford Unversty Press. [6] FAO, (2015). The State of Food Insecurty n the World. Meetng the 2015 nternatonal hunger targets: takng stock of uneven progress. [7] Kdane, H., Alemu, Z.,& Kundhlande G.(20). Causes of household food nsecurty n Koredegaga peasant Assocaton, Orma Zone, Ethopa. Agrekon 44(3): [8] Sen A., (1981). Poverty and Famne. An essay on enttlement and Deprvaton. ISBN Clarendon Press Oxford. [9] Shshay K. and Messay M., (2014). Determnants of rural household food nsecurty n Laelay Machew Woreda Tgray, Ethopa. College of Agrculture, Aksum Unversty, Shre, Ethopa. Afrcan Journal of Agrculture and Food Securty, Vol. 2 (1), PP Ethopa. [10] Stephen D., (2010). Food nsecurty n Ethopa. A dscusson paper for DFID. IDS, Sussex [11] WFP, (2009). Food Securty and Vulnerablty n selected towns of Tgray Regon. Vulnerablty Assessment and Mappng (VAM). Adds Ababa, Ethopa. Page 207