Determinants of Household Food Insecurity in Rural Ethiopia: Multiple Linear Regression (Classical and Bayesian Approaches)

Abstract

This paper examined the determinants of food insecurity among rural households in Ethiopia using data obtained from Households Consumption and Expenditure (HCE) and Welfare Monitoring (WMS) Survey conducted in 2011 by Central Statistical Agency (CSA). Bayesian multiple liner regression analysis was employed to identify determinant factors of rural household's food insecurity, diet quality. The study revealed that the diet quality measure for rural households was obtained to be 68% who food secured and 32% who food in secured. The results of the analysis show that the variables, educational level of head of households, annual per capita expenditure of a households, farm land size of a households, number of oxen owned by the farm households, distance to input source, age of the households head, household size, gender of head of household, participating in off-farm activities, production storage and shocks such as: price rice of food items, flood, drought and illness were found to be the most important determinants of households food insecurity. Accordingly, the study suggests that a judicious combination of interventions that enhance income diversification opportunities in rural areas through promoting off-farm activities, family planning, and education, training and extension services could help enhance household food security. Provision of awareness creation on better and productive utilization of such resources as production storage should also be emphasized in rural areas. Generally improvements in fourteen predictor variables have the potential to increase the number of food secured households in rural households of Ethiopia.