FACTORS AFFECTING RURAL HOUSEHOLD FOOD SECURITY: THE CASE OF GURA DAMOLE WOREDA, BALE ZONE, OROMIA REGIONAL STATE OF ETHIOPIA

Abstract

Transitory and chronic food insecurity is severe in Ethiopia. Thus, identifying and analysing those elements that are responsible for variation in household food security status are needed to guide policy decisions, appropriate interventions and integrated efforts to combat food insecurity. In this thesis an attempt is made to assess food security status and its determinants in Gura Damole Woreda Bale zone Oromia regional state by using primary and secondary data. For this purpose descriptive statistics, binary logit were used. Two stages random sampling procedure was used to select two kebeles and 168 sample respondents from a total of 15 kebeles. The survey result revealed that 42.6% of sample farmers were food secure and 57.7% were food insecure without hunger. The binary logit model results make known that among 8 explanatory variables included in the model, three were found to be significant. These significant variables include family size, age of household head and market distance. The evidence of ordered logit model reveals that variables like family size, age of household head and market distance were significant determinants of rural household food security status. Identifying and understanding factors that are responsible for rural household food security status and its determinants is important to combat food security problems at the household level. The study findings suggest that in selecting priority intervention areas, the food security strategy should consider statistically significant variables as the most important areas.