Determinants of household dietary diversity in Yayu Biosphere Reserve, Southwest Ethiopia

Lack of dietary diversity is a severe problem among the poor in the developing world, including Ethiopia. Empirical evidence for factors contributing to low dietary diversity hardly exists. The objective of this study was to analyze determinants of Household Dietary Diversity and consumption behavior in Yayu biosphere reserve, South-West Ethiopia. A cross sectional survey was conducted on 183 randomly selected households. Primary data were collected from sample households through interviews, focus group discussions and key informant interviews. Secondary data were collected by reviewing different documents. Descriptive statistics and econometric models were used for analyzing quantitative data. The ordered logit model was employed to determine the influence of explanatory variables on the dependent variable. The average household dietary diversity score was 5.5±1.7SD. About 17.5% of the sampled households belonged to low, 61.2% to medium and 21.3% to high dietary diversity. The age of the household head, education, income, access to irrigation, home gardening and dietary diversity awareness affected household dietary diversity positively and significantly and distance from market negatively. In conclusion, policy and development interventions should target education and awareness creation tools to provide households up to date nutritional knowledge and agricultural technologies to increase production and income, and thereby enhance household dietary diversity

Impacts of crossbreed dairy cow adoption on women dietary diversity in southwestern Ethiopia

Most of agricultural technology increases women's labor burdens without associated benefits. This paper envisages one of the dairy technology types “crossbreed dairy cow” adoption and its impacts on women's nutrition security in Southwestern Ethiopia. The quasi experimental research design was applied by using the quantitative and qualitative cross sectional data. To get specific study area and the study respondents (266 women) we applied a multi-stage sampling procedure. Data was collected through interview schedule; focused group discussion and key informant interview. Descriptive statistics, Binary logit and Propensity Score Matching (PSM) were used to analyze the data. The study results showed that crossbreed dairy cow adoption was found to be affected by age, education level, livestock size, training participation, mobile phone ownership, and cooperative membership significantly and positively. Meanwhile, dairy production experience and market distance affected negatively. About 58.6% of women reached minimum dietary diversity for women (MDD-W) and the mean of women's dietary diversity score (WDDS) is 6.1 ± 2. The result of PSM indicated that the adoption of crossbreed dairy cows has increased the dietary diversity of women by 15.6%. In general, crossbreed dairy cow adoption have a positive and significant influence on women's nutrition security. Therefore, scaling up of crossbreed cows should be strengthened in the study area. The paper can add empirical evidence to the adoption of dairy technology for the improvement of women's nutrition security