Abstract:
Now a day food insecurity issues become one of the serious concern and top priority area for
developing countries. Urban areas are faced with the problem of increasing population and c
onsequently inadequate supply of food items. With the current progressing urbanization
, increasing urban poverty trends, and rapid run-up in prices of food, the question of urban
food insecurity could become one of the greatest challenge for many urban households, and
the concern of food insecurity are progressively shifting from rural to urban. Hence, this
study was conducted to assess household’s food insecurity situation, to identify the factors
affecting food insecurity on the households as well as their coping strategies. In order to
achieve these objectives demographic and as socio-economic data were collected, the
researcher has used 125 respondents for questionnaire, and 13 FGD respondents, 12 key info
rmant interview respondents. Households were selected using systematic random sampling pr
ocedure proportional to size from the selected three kebele of the study area. Totally 150
individuals were involved during data collection in the study area. Both qualitative and
quantitative methodologies were applied. The triangulation of structured interview of sample
households, in-depth interview with key informants, focus group discussions, observations,
published and unpublished materials were employed as sources of data. The data were
analyzed using descriptive statistics such as table, figure, percentage, and frequency
distribution. HH size, HHHs income, HHHs age, HHHs education, owning bank account,
marital status, and income from remittance and gift were found to influence the HHs food
insecurity in the study area. The finding of the study on the types of coping strategies used by
households in the study area has shown that HHs implement various coping strategies at the
food shortages. On the other hand, reduction of the size of meals; reduction in number of
meals per day, barrowing cash, received food aid and become daily labor were found to be
more frequently practiced coping strategies. From the coping strategies of households
69(55.2%) respondents told cheaper foods, 43(34.4%) respondents used reduced
meal frequencies and 13(10.4%) respondents used smaller quantities to eat. The major copin
g strategies against food shortags were the purchase of less preferred food and reduction in t
he quantity of meals. Moreover, the study recommended the capacity building for elderly and
female headed household, provision of better family planning to reduce HH size ; getting be
tter urban infrastructure and social services, promoting urban agriculture and strengthen
HH asset building programs to strengthen the link between urban development and food
security programs and rural development as strategies t o enhance the accessibility of food
for urban HHs. The study recommends that efforts at reducing food insecurity among urban
HHs should focus on increasing urban HH income and food supply.
