Does Climate Shock Aggravate Household Food Insecurity in Rural Ethiopia? Evidences from Panel Data Estimation

Ethiopian rural households are vulnerable to various climate shocks that affect agricultural production and thereby the household food security. Rural households frequently experience drought which may adversely affect food security and livelihood of rural households in the country. Thus, assessing the past challenges on food security due to climate shocks may have paramount importance in reducing the future vulnerability by providing appropriate measures towards mitigation and adaptation of future climate shocks. Using a longitudinal household dataset drawn from the Ethiopia Rural Household Survey, this study examines the effect of climate shocks on the Ethiopian rural households’ food security. By employing a fixed effects econometric analysis technique, climate shock is found to be negatively and significantly associated with food security over time. A negative climate shock variable implies that, households vulnerable to drought tends to be more food insecure than their counterparts. It has also been found that a household food security is hugely determined by the household’s resource endowment. Among the variables representing human capital endowments, large family size is found to be negatively associated with household food security. Among the basic physical resource endowments, land and livestock play a vital role in determining the household food security in rural Ethiopia. Moreover, our study identified that, credit use is an important financial capital influencing household food security in the study area. Overall, our principal result is that unfavorable climatic conditions combined with lack of necessary households’ resource endowments; adversely affect the rural household food security in Ethiopia. Given the vital role the households resource endowments have in reducing food insecurity, the findings suggest that policies that can contribute to the improvement of households’ resource endowments should not be undermined. Keywords: Climate shock, Drought, Ethiopia, Food security, Resource Endowment

Agricultural intensification in Ethiopia: Patterns, trends, and welfare impacts

This study examined the patterns, trends, and drivers of agricultural intensification and productivity growth during the recent decade (2012 - 2019) using three rounds of household data collected from four agricultural regions of Ethiopia. The descriptive results indicate a positive trend both in adoption and intensity of inputs and outputs, albeit from a low base and with considerable heterogeneity by access to information, rainfall levels and variability, labor, soil quality, and remoteness, among others. The econometric results show significant association between intensification, yield growth, household dietary diversity, and consumer durables. The results on the association between current yield levels and per capita consumption expenditures are however mixed (i.e., while an increase in cereal yield improves food consumption expenditures, an increase in cash crop yield improves only non-food consumption expenditures). In sum, while the increasing input intensification and the resulting yield gains are associated with improvements in household diets and consumer durables, it falls short to have strong impact on incomes (as measured by total consumption expenditures), indicating that additional efforts must be made to see meaningful impacts on higher order outcomes. Additional welfare improv-ing productivity gains through increased input intensification may require investments in appropriate fer-tilizer blends; investments in improved seeds (to accelerate varietal turnover), ways to mitigate production (rainfall) risk, and investments to remodel Ethiopia’s extension system to provide much needed technical support to farmers on production methods

Uneven recovery and a lingering food crisis during the COVID-19 pandemic for rural safety net transfer recipients in Ethiopia

In the first few months of the COVID-19 pandemic, researchers at IFPRI and elsewhere worked quickly with their partners in government, the private sector, and survey firms to provide evidence on the immediate impacts of the COVID-19 health crisis and related restrictions in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). However, systematic evidence on the effects of the crisis has been more limited in the ensuing months up to and after the one-year anniversary of the pandemic. Early analysis of economic models of the crisis suggested that its economic effects would be severe in the short run and greatest in Africa south of the Sahara, where the pandemic and related lockdowns were projected to depress incomes of both urban workers and rural households (Laborde, Martin, and Vos 2021). Phone surveys and rapid assessments conducted in the first weeks of the pandemic reported significant job losses in both rural and urban areas (Wieser et al. 2020), disruptions to urban food value chains (Tamru, Hirvonen, and Minten 2020), and declines in household dietary diversity in Addis Ababa (Hirvonen, de Brauw, and Abate 2021). In the time since those initial projections and rapid surveillance surveys were conducted, researchers have revisited the same samples to analyze the medium-term effects of the pandemic. In addition, they have gathered information on households at the economic margins of society and those considered to be less affected by the pandemic by virtue of their sector of employment or remote location

The impact of Ethiopia’s Productive Safety Nets and Household Asset Building Programme: 2006-2010

Non-PRIFPRI5PHND; DSG

Insuring against the weather

Weather risk remains a major challenge to farming in poor countries that face frequent droughts. Recent evidence on index-based weather insurance points to low take-up rates largely due to basis risk (i.e. residual risk left uninsured by the index). Using randomized control trials, we study to what extent traditional groups can be utilized to mitigate basis risk by retailing insurance through these groups. We find that selling insurance through iddirs, with pre-defined sharing rules, increases take-up—suggesting that groups are better placed to reduce basis risk. We also find that insurance strengthens existing risk-sharing behavior within groups, for example, by improving access to loans from the iddir to cover crop losses and improving perceived ability to finance emergencies. Insurance has also improved household welfare in the short term considered in this study, albeit to a limited extent.Non-PRIFPRI1; Theme 6; Subtheme 6.2; GRP32; ESSP IIDSG

Evidence based on household panel data from Northern Ethiopia

PRIFPRI3; ISIDSG

Gender implications of agricultural commercialization in Africa: Evidence from farm households in Ethiopia and Nigeria

Agricultural commercialization is often pursued as an important driver of agricultural transformation in low-income countries. However, the implications it can have on gendered outcomes are less understood. While agricultural commercialization creates opportunities to increase income, this may come at the expense of change in women’s decision-making agency and control over resources. Understanding the interactions between agricultural commercialization and gender outcomes is thus critical for policymakers aspiring to achieve agricultural transformation while promoting gender equity and the evidence on the links between the two in the context of Africa is scarce and mixed. We use three rounds of Ethiopia’s and Nigeria’s LSMS-ISA panel data to understand the implications of agricultural commercialization to gendered decision-making on crop harvest use, marketing, revenue control, asset ownership, and intrahousehold budget allocation. Results indicate commercialization is associated with decreases in women’s participation in decision-making related to use of harvest, crop marketing, and control over revenue in Ethiopia, but only on harvest use and control over revenue in Nigeria. The association with land ownership is mixed: positive in Ethiopia but negative in Nigeria. Moreover, commercialization is associated with decreases in women’s share of farm-workload but with increases in share of hired labor in Ethiopia. In Ethiopia we also find women’s control over revenue is positively associated with increases in per capita consumption expenditures and dietary diversity, but men’s control is negatively associated with increases in the share of expenditure on children’s shoes and clothes. In Nigeria, women’s control is positively associated with increases in the share of expenditure on women’s shoes and clothes, food gap, and dietary diversity. In sum, we find suggestive evidence that commercialization may further marginalize women’s decision-making agency in Ethiopia and Nigeria. However, conditional on women’s control over proceeds, commercialization tends to improve women’s as well as other members’ welfare. We provide some policy recommendations and directions for future research.Non-PRIFPRI1; GCAN; CRP7; 4 Transforming Agricultural and Rural EconomiesDSGD; EPTDCGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS

Foodgrain consumption and calorie intake patterns in Ethiopia

Levels and composition of food consumption are major determinants of the nutritional wellbeing of individuals, which in turn, have important implications for health, productivity, and income. Analyzing food consumption patterns in poor countries, such as Ethiopia, is therefore pivotal to designing national policies to promote food security.Food consumption patterns in Ethiopia are diverse, and unlike in many other countries, no single crop dominates the national food basket (e.g., rice in most of East Asia, maize in Latin America, or cassava in Central Africa). The Ethiopian food basket consists of a wide variety of grains and other staples. However, consumption levels and mixes of these grains vary widely according to differences in agro-ecology, socioeconomic levels, and livelihood strategies. Moreover, given dependence on own production, particularly in rural areas, foodgrain consumption varies at different times of the year. As in many other traditional societies, dietary preferences and consumption patterns are heavily influenced by cultural values and traditions and may not necessarily reflect availability or the nutritional quality of specific food items.Non-PRIFPRI2; GRP32; ESSP IIDSG

Rural finance and smallholder farming in Ethiopia

PRIFPRI4; Capacity Strengthening; ESSP; CRP2; 4 Transforming Agricultural and Rural EconomiesDSGD; PIMCGIAR Research Program on Policies, Institutions, and Markets (PIM