Abstract:
Climate variability and change are the most serious environmental threats to food security by
affecting food systems in several ways ranging from direct effects on crop production to changes
in markets (food prices). The objective of this study is to assess and identify the impact of climate
variability on food security of rural women-headed households and their coping mechanisms in
the study area. Both qualitative and quantitative data was collected from primary and secondary
source. Purposive and stratified random sampling was employed to obtain a sampled 148 rural
women headed households. Descriptive statistics, multiple regression, correlation and
coefficient of variation were used to analyze these data. The results show that mean annual
rainfall was characterized by both seasonal and inter annual variability while mean annual
temperature had increased during the period. Climate variables accounted for 30 percent of the
variation in production and 9.9 percent of the price. As a result, women headed household food
security situation was vary depend on climate variations. Based on these findings, the study
concluded that mean annual temperature and rainfall were the main determinants of the rural
women headed households food availability. Therefore, the government needs to help women
headed households to overcome the constraints they face. Furthermore, the government can
play a significant role by providing support during the climatic risk beyond local coping
capacity and promoting awareness creating program and support of meteorological service by
reporting and alerting women headed households about weather changes in an understandable
way so that they can be able to plan for their future production hence food security.
