Daniel Ayalew Mekonnen

In spite of receiving a significant amount of food aid, achieving food security has been a major problem in Ethiopia. The claim is evidenced from the 2010 Global Hunger Index where the country fared dismally, coming only fourth from the bottom. There are several factors attributing to this problem of food insecurity in a country like Ethiopia which depends highly on agriculture and allied activities. Some of the factors can be linked to low food production and productivity thereby leading to pervasive poverty. In order to assess these factors, the study was conducted on some selected members of agro-pastoral communities of Somali and Oromia regions in Ethiopia. Using availability of food in the household for the last one month as a proxy for food security, the estimated results of a logistic regression model indicated that the most significant factors affecting household food security are educational level of the spouse and that of the household head, size of farm land, availability of household assets including livestock, peace and security. The paper suggests some leads to how these amenities and resources can be provided to household members as they endeavor to reduce food insecurity.

Food has been used to define social classes and as a means of embodying the ‘good life’. Depending on the food culture and food environment, certain foods may be consumed more by the relatively higher income groups and therefore are perceived as ‘positional’. This study examines whether social status—proxied by the relative consumption expenditures (the rank in the consumption expenditure distribution) and the relative deprivation in consumption expenditures—can explain household food choices. Based on the nationally representative Nigeria General Household Panel Surveys and using fixed effects estimations, we find that consumption of highly processed foods is strongly associated with the social status of the household. We observe differences among highly processed foods consumed at home and away from home, across geographic locations and consumption expenditure terciles. The results of this study provide suggestive evidence that reducing income inequality is required to support hea...

Information and communication technologies (ICTs) developments have taken place in Africa with the significant growth over the past decade. This paper looks at the evidence on the role of emerging ICTs in the agricultural sector in Africa with lessons from Asia with respect to farmers’ access to information and other services that would help improve agricultural productivity, practices, and farmer livelihoods. It suggests that countries should avoid monopoly situations and encourage pluralistic providers to induce competition for higher efficiency and lower costs to consumers.

Agriculture and health are linked in various ways. These links are bidirectional: agriculture influences health and health influences agriculture. Good health is an asset for agriculture, as healthy people can produce more and good nutrition contributes to it. In fact CAADP pillar 3 recognizes good health as one of the solutions to food security challenges in Africa. Conversely, agriculture is an asset which contributes to good health and nutrition, and make people resilient. When both health and agriculture thrive, a reinforcing cycle of health can result, but when either suffers, the cycle becomes one of lowered agricultural productivity and lowered health. Agricultural development and practice can exacerbate the incidence of disease through an interaction with disease vectors and parasites. When disease afflicts farmers, their productivity is reduced and they remain in poverty. Beyond the direct impacts due to loss of labor, illness undermines long-term agricultural productivity ...

Good health is an asset for agriculture, as healthy people can produce more and good nutrition contributes to it. Conversely, agriculture is an asset which contributes to good health and nutrition, and resilience. When both health and agriculture thrive, a reinforcing cycle of health can result, but when either suffers, the cycle becomes one of lowered agricultural productivity and lowered health. Agricultural development and practice can exacerbate the incidence of disease through an interaction with disease vectors and parasites. When disease afflicts farmers, their productivity is reduced and they remain in poverty. Beyond the direct impacts due to loss of labor, illness undermines long-term agricultural productivity in a number of ways: when illness leads to long-term incapacitation, households may respond through withdrawal of savings, the sale of important assets (such as jewelry, textiles, breeding animals, farm equipment, and land), withdrawing children from school, or reduc...

Eighty-three percent of the population of Ethiopia depends directly on agriculture for their livelihoods, while many others depend on agriculture-related cottage industries such as textiles, leather, and food oil processing. Agriculture contributes about 46.3 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) (World Bank 2008) and up to 90 percent of total export earnings. As part of the current five-year (2006–2011) Plan for Accelerated and Sustained Development to End Poverty (PASDEP), the government is continuing to invest heavily in agriculture. A core part of the government's investment in agriculture is the public agricultural extension system. This study was conducted to assess the strengths and constraints of the public extension system and to provide suggestions on “best fit” solutions and their scale-up opportunities. The review used a variety of analytical tools to develop the overall findings, including extensive field visits to six of nine regions in Ethiopia; interviews with ...

Addressing short- and long-term challenges of global food and nutrition security entails putting the right policies and strategies in place. In the context of FoodSecure project, this involves analysing drivers of global FNS and drawing suitable conclusions based on empirical evidence from different countries and regions of the world. This typology facilitates calibration of models and interpretation of results from case studies, and also it provides guidance on selection of case studies by FoodSecure project partners. In this regard, the typology classifies regions and livelihood systems based on the countries' characteristics including their food or nutrition security profiles, as well as on their agricultural, economic, (agricultural) innovation systems, social and political profiles. Methodologically, it builds upon existing country classifications used by major international agencies. Yet, existing multidimensional typologies reviewed in this study often rely on indices and...

This paper examines the existence of social learning in agriculture in Ethiopia. We use a ‘random matching within sample’ technique to collect data on social networks and elicit details of the relationships and information exchange between network members, complementing the analysis with information on self-reported networks. We find that, while kinship or membership in certain groups, informal forms of insurance, or having frequent meetings with network members are all associated with a higher probability of forming an information link, none of these are correlated with observed innovative behavior such as the adoption of row-planting. This may suggest that behavior is more likely to be affected by the nature of information that passes through the network, rather than the number of information links. In support of this, we find that information links that exclusively involve discussions on farming or business matters are indeed associated with a higher likelihood of adopting row-pl...

This study examines the cost and affordability of healthy diets in Nigeria. Using the 2015/16 and 2018/19 waves of Nigeria General Household Surveys, we find that, generally, the least-cost options to meet dietary recommendations for vegetables, dairy, and protein-rich foods are more expensive to meet than that of other food groups. Despite improvements during the survey years, the challenges of affordability of healthy diets appear more pronounced in rural than urban, among poorest household groups, and in northern than southern Nigeria. Results suggest that it will be more expensive to meet the dietary recommendation for dairy foods if priority will be given for food systems sustainability over concerns for food preferences of the households. It will however be cheaper to achieve dietary recommendations for vegetables, fruits and starchy staples even when households give more consideration to food systems sustainability than tastes and preferences in their choice of healthy foods....

Previous studies in Nigeria examined food and nutrition security mainly using anthropometric indicators, total calorie intake, or the household dietary diversity score (HDDS). However, recent evidence on nutrient and dietary gaps, especially from nationally representative surveys, is weak. This study contributes by examining factors influencing household mean nutrient adequacy and HDDS with focus on components of food systems in Nigeria. Based on the 2015/16 Nigeria General Household Survey, we found that fruits and animal source foods were the least consumed food groups. Yet, these food groups seem to be the main sources of difference in HDDS and were strongly associated with the mean probability of nutrient adequacy, given covariates. Among 11 nutrients under study, large shortfalls were observed in consumption of iron, vitamin B12, and riboflavin with probability of adequacy being 0.2 or below, followed by niacin, vitamin C, and zinc with corresponding probability of adequacy ran...

This study examined the use of the household dietary diversity score (HDDS) to assess household nutrient adequacy in Ethiopia. It also examined the correlates of HDDS following the food systems framework. Results show that the average nutrient consumption in Ethiopia varies by place of residence and by income profile, where households in urban areas and those in the higher income quintiles rank favorably. Among 13 nutrients under study, we found nutrient inadequacy for fat, calcium, zinc, riboflavin, niacin, folate, vitamin C and vitamin A ranging between 46% and 89%, and the prevalence of inadequacy for vitamin B12 to be up to 100%. Econometric results showed that HDDS is a strong predictor of a household’s mean probability of nutrient adequacy (MPA), and that an HDDS of 10 is the minimum threshold at which HDDS can improve household MPA. We found suggestive evidence within the food systems that improving household-incomes, access to health and transport services are beneficial to ...