Abstract:
Homegarden agroforestry support biodiversity and a considerable contribution for rural households’
food security. Yet, the diversity of plant species and it’s contribution to food security was insufficiently
understood and documented in Melka Bello District. Therefore, the study aims to assess the diversity
of plant species in homegarden agroforestry and its contribution to food security in Melka Bello
District of East Hararghe Zone, Ethiopia. Sixteen kebeles were purposively selected based on the
presence of homegarden agroforestry and three of them were randomly selected, from which 120
households were selected for this study. All trees, shrubs and herbaceous plants were counted and
recorded in each of 10mx10m, 5m x 5m and 1m x 1m quadrats, respectively. The household survey
was involved questionnaire based respondent and key informant interview. The study was carried out
from October 24, 2020 and May 25, 2021. The recorded Data was organized and analyzed by
Statistical Package for Social Sciences(SPSS) version 20 and Microsoft Office Excel 2010, using
descriptive statistic such as mean, percentage and frequency. A total of 3411 individual number of
plants, belonging to 82 species and 45 families constituting 34% trees, 33% shrubs and 33% herbs
species were recorded in homegarden of the study area. The mean richness of woody species was
significantly different (P < 0.05) only among Mulisa Haka and Dageya Belo kebeles. While, the mean
abundance indicated significant difference in between Mulisa Haka and the other two (Dageya Belo
and Tokuma Jalela) kebeles. There was significant mean difference in both richness and abundance of
herbaceous species (P < 0.05) among Mulisa Haka and the other two (Dageya Belo and Tokuma
Jalela) study Kebeles. The highest value of richness (7.04) and abundance (15.7) of woody species
were recorded both in Dageya Belo kebele and highest value of richness (5.8) and abundance (21.7)
of herbaceous species were recorded in Tokuma Jalela and Dageya Belo kebeles respectively. There
was significant difference in the mean value of Shannon and Simpson diversity index (P < 0.05) of
woody plant species among Mulisa Haka and Dageya Belo Kebeles. The highest mean Shannon
diversity index of woody species (1.72) was recorded in Dageya Belo followed by Tokuma Jalela (1.6)
and lowest (1.42) was in Mulisa Haka site. The overall mean Shannon, Simpson and Evenness index of
herbaceous plant species was found to be 1.25, 0.95 and 0.89 respectively. The result of this study
shows significant mean difference of Shannon and Simpson diversity index (P<0.05) only among
Mulisa Haka and the other two Kebeles. The total mean income of 6,511.4,1627.9, 920 and 1045.4
ETB were obtained from field farm,HG farm, off-farm and non-farm respectively. Accordingly, about
51.6% of daily food consumption from field (41.3%) and HG (10.3%) farm were as the left 35.5% and
13% of food from purchased by their different income sources and food aid/PSNP respectively. About
60% of respondents were food insecure and 40% of them were food secure. Homegarden agroforestry
is important land use system in plant species diversity and contributes in food security improvement
and thus, should be encouraged.