Determinants Of Rural Households’ Food Scurity In Banja Woreda, Awi Zone, Amhara Regional State, Ethiopia

Abstract

Food security gap is a growing concern at regional, national and local levels of Ethiopia. This study was conduct on the determinants of rural households’ food security in Banja Woreda, Awi Zone. The objective of this study was to investigate the determinants of rural households’ food security of Banjia Woreda, Awi Zone. In order to achieve this objective, demographic and socio-economic data were collect from 150 randomly selected farm households in the selected two Kebeles of Banja Woreda namely Janguta-kuwancha and Asera-Basa. Systematic sampling method was employ to select the sampling units. Cross-sectional household survey was conduct to collect the primary data from the sampled farmers in the study areas through administering a structured questionnaire to rural households to gather qualitative and quantitative data pertaining to household demographic characteristics and related issues about the farm household in a specific period. And also a secondary data were conduct from books, journals, and internet sources. The data analysis techniques involved both description and Binary logistic regression. The results of the study revealed that 37.3% of rural households in the study area were food secure and 37.3% were food insecure. The Household Food Insecurity Access Scale (HFIAS) shows that HH cannot cover the required daily food from the production generated from their agriculture as well as other activities. Households with large family size, households who cannot read and write and old household heads are more likely to be food insecure than their counter parties. Similarly low land size, poor, a few number of livestock, low access to credit service; high-interest rates as well as the short-term and fixed repayment periods are significantly associated with food insecurity. Finally, promoting income-generating activities, enhancing the micro-financing efficiency, initiating family planning activity, strength of farm and on-farm diversification enhance food security. These food insecure households could not cover the required daily food from the income generated of their major activity of subsistence agriculture and non-farm activities both in quality and quantity. The government should give Proper attention to increase food production and productivity through better access to credit service and improve agricultural technology inputs such as livestock management practices, improved crop varieties practices, and diversification of farm products with value addition.