Determinants of Food Security status in Rural Households in Mojaena Wodera Woreda, Ethiopia

Abstract

The main objective of this study was to assess household food security status and its major determinants in the rural households of Mojaena Wodera Woreda, Ethiopia. A systematic random sampling method was employed to select the sample from study area. The study period was from September 2017 to September 2018. The recommended daily calorie requirement was used to determine the household food security status. To analyze the data descriptive statistics, bivariate analysis and both Classical logistic regression and Bayesian logistic regression analyses were used. The descriptive analysis of the study revealed that only 37.6% of the sample households were food secured and 62.4% of households were food insecured which was felt short of the 2100kcal per day per person that was national recommended calorie requirements. Based on Hosmer and Lemeshow test the chi-square value and significance value shows that Classical logistic model is quite a good fit. In addition to this, the classification results revealed that 81.3% of the households were correctly predicted Using both Classical and Bayesian logistic regression analysis, eight out of twenty-one predictor variables were selected as major determinants of household food security status. These significant variables were age, marital status, farm land size, land fertility, annual yield, improved seed use, having oxen and family size of household head. Government and the woreda agricultural office should provide cultivable and more fertile farm land, improved seed and support oxen to the farming households at affordable prices to be able to increase farmland size and total annual yield or food production.