Impact of Commercialization on rural households' Food Security in Major Coffee Growing Areas of South West Ethiopia: the Case of Jimma zone.

Abstract

This study aimed to analyze the impact of smallholder commercialization on rural food security in Major coffee growing areas of south west Ethiopia: the Case of Jimma zone. For the purpose of analysis both primary and secondary data was used to generate the required information. Multi-stage random sampling technique was used to select 150 smallholder farmers. Descriptive and inferential statistics tool used include, Crop Output Market Participation (COMP), Foster-Greer-Thorbecke (FGT) model and logit model. The results showed that about 68% of the small holder farmers were food secure households. Smallholder farmer commercialization has effect on food security level of smallholder farmers. The estimation results of the logit model showed that family size (FSIZEAE), Age of household (HEADAGE), Size of cultivated land (FLANDha), Crop output market participation (COMP), Access to credit (AC-CREDT), were significantly affect rural household food security. The study suggests for policies that will improve smallholder farmer family planning service, accesses to credits, Capacity building, better land conservation practices, market information and road in designing food security policy in the sampled population