Abstract:
This study attempts to estimate the food insecurity status and identify the major determinants
of food insecurity in pastoral and agro pastoral household in awsa zone, afar region:
Ethiopia. Multi stage sampling technique was used to select representative sample
households and Survey data were collected from 200 sample household heads. The study
used both primary and secondary data sources. Primary data was collected through
structured questionnaire and focus group discussion while Secondary data was collected
from reviewing of various documents related to food insecurity. Descriptive statistics, foster
gear Thorbecke (FGT) indices and binary logistic econometrics model was used to analyze
the collected data. It was found that about 62 percent of the sampled households were food
insecure and 38 percent were food secure. The FGT indices revealed that the incidence,
depth and severity of food insecurity are found to be 62 percent, 18 percent and, 7.16
percent respectively. The results of the regression analysis showed sex(male) of household
head, marital status(married) of the household head, literacy of household head, livestock
holding, cultivated land size and food aid were negatively associated with household food
insecurity while, family size per adult equivalent positively affecting household food
insecurity. The most severe coping strategies employed by households during food deficit
were dropping children out of school, sale of fire wood, wood for construction and charcoal,
selling long lasting household assets, slaughtering small animals for household consumption
and exchange of small animals to cereals. Generally the findings of the study suggests that
there is a need to improve their educational level by bringing education intervention
programs and to improve livestock production and productivity through provision of
veterinary drug services, sustainable forage development programs, improving the capacity
of community animal health workers and a need to Provide aids (food or in kind) in a way
that could be assisted households to fully stand on their own. Moreover, it is recommended
that the Government together with its development partners have to plan and implement a
long term and sustainable solutions and design welfare monitoring system for the pastoral
and agro pastoral community in order to reduce the existing high level of food insecurity
and to reduce households dependency on food aid grants.
