Determinants of food insecurity in the rural farm households in South Wollo Zone of Ethiopia: the case of the Teleyayen sub-watershed

Abstract

This study evaluated determinants of food insecurity in the rural farm households of the Teleyayen sub-watershed in Ethiopia. The study used a multistage sampling procedure to select 215 sample households involving a combination of purposive and random sampling. Data were collected using structured survey questionnaire, focus group discussion (FGD), and key informant interviews. Independent sample t test, chi-square, percentage, mean, and standard deviation were employed to analyze the data. It was found that 20.9 and 79.1% of the sample households are food secure and food insecure, respectively. The majority of the food insecure households were younger household heads, who own less than 1 ha of farmlands. On average, male-headed households were more food secure than female-headed households. The result of the binary logistic regression revealed that shortage of farmland, poverty, recurrent drought and climate change, shortage of rainfall, and land degradation are determining factors for such food insecurity. However, the gender of household head, policy support, land redistribution, farmland topography, soil fertility, and erosion do not show any significant influence.