Linking Small-Scale Irrigation and Household Food Security in Drought Prone Area of North East Ethiopia: A Case of Alawuha Irrigation Scheme, Gubalafto Woreda, and North Wollo Zone
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Date
2011-06
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
In north eastern part of Ethiopia, drought induced food insecurity has been a long-lasting
problem. In this thesis, an attempt made to identify household food security status and its
determinants in one of drought prone area- Gubalafto Woreda. Moreover, the linkages
between Small Scale Irrigation and household food security in provision of food energy
assessed. A multi- stage stratified sampling procedure was used to select 115 sample
households from both irrigation users and non-users living within the targeted kebeles. A
combination of quantitative analysis like descriptive statistics, Household Food Balance
Model, binary logit model and qualitative study were used to reach at reliable results by
using data gathered from both primary and secondary sources. The survey result
revealed that 29 % of sample households were food insecure and 71 % food secure.
There is huge gap in food calorie availability ranging from 788- 8405Kca in the study
area. Food insecure households were found to have an average of 24% food gap in terms
of dietary energy, which is needed to fulfill the national minimum requirements. The
average per capita calorie supply for irrigation users was found substantially increased
by 889 Kcal, which is about 42 % percent of the minimum requirement of food calorie
requires by an individual. The use of SSI was found significantly related to household
food security situation in provision of household dietary energy and taking a lion share in
the proportion of study areas major consumable from food crops production. The logit
model revealed that household size, educational status of household head, number of
farm oxen, cultivated land size, engagement in non-farming, access to irrigation and
credit service were found significant determinants. Correspondingly, the study disclosed
that the long distance between irrigated land to farmers residence, lack of cleaning and
maintenance of scheme, free grazing , poor irrigation methods and crop selection were
the major constraints in the irrigation farm. SSI is one of the viable solutions to
household food supplement and hence promoting of smallholders to produce directly
consumable food grains is advantageous. It is important to address those food security
determinants and farmers’ views in planning and executing of development policies and
programs by all stakeholders to tackle the problem of household food insecurity in the
study area
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Keywords
Food Security