Understanding food security determinants and coping strategies among smallholder farming households in Northern Ethiopia

Figures & data

Figure 1. Location of the study area: (a) map of Ethiopia and (b) Bugna district with topography highlighted and existing roads and rivers.

Table 1. Description of the dependent and independent variables used in the logit model.

Variables	Type	Value	Mean	StDv	Expected
Dependent variable
Food security status	Categ.	0 = insecure, 1 = secure	0.507	0.50
Independent variables
Age	Cont.	Years	45.11	9.63	+ve
Gender	Categ.	1 = Male, 0 = Female	0.78	0.41	+ve
Literacy	Categ.	1 = Literate, 0 = illiterate	0.32	0.47	+ve
Marital Status	Categ.	1 = Married, 0 = Not-married	0.60	0.49	+ve
Family Size	Cont.	Number in adult equivalent	5.1	2.54	+ve
Social linkage	Categ.	1 = Yes, 0 = No	0.79	0.41	+ve
Migration	Categ.	1 = Yes, 0 = No	0.75	0.44	+ve
No. of oxen-owned	Cont.	Tropical livestock unit (TLU)	0.92	0.81	+ve
No. of Mules owned	Cont.	TLU	0.19	0.39	+ve
Selling of assets	Categ.	1 = Yes, 0 = No	0.68	0.47	+ve
Farmland size	Cont.	Hectare/s	1.54	0.90	+ ve
Maize producers	Categ.	1 = Yes, 0 = No	0.53	0.50	±ve
Wheat producers	Categ.	1 = Yes, 0 = No	0.87	0.34	±ve
Market distance	Cont.	Kilometer	3.93	4.52	–ve
Access to Credit	Categ.	1 = Yes, 0 = No	0.38	0.49	+ve
Access to drinking water	Categ.	1 = Yes, 0 = No	0.22	0.42	+ve
Access to health service	Categ.	1 = Yes, 0 = No	0.54	0.50	+ve
Use of fertilizer	Categ.	1 = Yes, 0 = No	0.35	0.48	+ve
Farm topography
Rugged (reference)	Categ.	1 = Yes, 0 = No	0.29	0.46
Mixed	Categ.	1 = Yes, 0 = No	0.39	0.49	±ve
Plain	Categ.	1 = Yes, 0 = No	0.31	0.47	+ve
Location/kebele
Birko	Categ.	1 = Yes, 0 = No	0.23	0.42	±ve
Daria	Categ.	1 = Yes, 0 = No	0.54	0.50	±ve
Kidus (reference)	Categ.	1 = Yes, 0 = No	0.23	0.42

StDv = standard deviation; Categ. = categorical; Cont. = continuous.

Table 2. Background characteristics of respondents in Bugna district, 2020.

Characteristics		Percent (%)	Characteristics		Percent (%)
Gender	Female	21.8	Farm fertility	Low	27.5
	Male	78.2		Medium	32.6
Marital status	Unmarried	39.8		High	39.9
	Married	60.1	Farm topography	Sloppy	29.5
Education level	Illiterate	68.0		Mixed	39.1
	Literate	32.0		Plain	31.4
Off-farm activities	No	62.4	Wheat producer	No	13.0
	Yes	37.4		Yes	87.0
Means of information	No	44.9	Maize producer	No	46.7
	Radio/TV	55.1		Yes	53.3

Table 3. Statistics of food security indicators (N = 353).

Indicators	Values
Average kilocalorie for food insecure households (kcal)	1,880.45
Average kilocalorie for food-secure households (kcal)	2,475.61
Food insecure households (%)	49.29
Food secure households (%)	50.71
Food shortfall index	10.5
Food surplus index	17.89
The Food Insecurity Gap	5.15
Squared Food Insecurity Gap	0.81

Table 4. Difference among households by the status of food security for categorical variables.

		Food security status		Pearson chi-square value
		Food insecure	Food secure
Literacy level	Illiterate	151	89	55.68***
	Literate	23	90
Off-farm activities	No	145	76	62.97***
	Yes	29	103
Access to credit	No	143	77	57.64***
	Yes	31	102
Access to extension services	No	20	6	8.573***
	Yes	154	173
Access to health services	No	110	54	38.75***
	Yes	64	125
Access to drinking water	No	162	113	46.05***
	Yes	12	66
Access to irrigation	No	149	151	0.112
	Yes	25	28
Use of fertilizer	No	151	78	72.279***
	Yes	23	101
Use of improved seeds	No	52	72	4.138*
	Yes	122	107
Maize producers	No	91	74	4.256*
	Yes	83	105
Wheat producers	No	12	34	11.395***
	Yes	162	145

Note: *** and * significant at 0.001 and 0.05 level, respectively.

Table 5. Difference among households by the status of food security for continuous variables.

Characteristics	Mean difference	Std. err.	Sig^a	CI
				Lower	Upper
Age	5.625	0.981	5.73***	3.694	7.555
Family size in AE	1.882	0.252	7.48***	1.388	2.377
Mules owned	−0.136	0.041	−3.31***	−0.217	−0.055
Livestock in TLU	−0.692	0.122	−5.67***	−0.931	−0.452
Landholding size	−0.391	0.094	−4.18***	−0.575	−0.207
Market distance	0.978	0.479	2.04*	0.036	1.920
Available kilocalorie	−595.13	28.02	−21.24***	−650.24	−540.03
Total income (ETB)	−2431.72	429.31	−5.66***	−3276.06	−1587.38
Agricultural production (Q)	−1.09	0.207	−5.26***	−1.498	−0.682

Notes: *** and * indicate statistical significance at 0.001 and 0.05 levels; AE = adult equivalent, ETB = Ethiopian birr, Q = quintal.

^aStatistical significance using t-test.

Table 6. Binary logistic regression results of food security (n = 353).

	95% CI
Variables	Odds ratio	Std. err.	Z	P value
Gender	1.385	0.639	0.71	0.480
Marital status	2.178	0.926	1.83	0.067
Literacy	3.878***(1.763, 8.532)	1.560	3.37	0.001
Family size (AE)	0.743***(0.634, 0.871)	0.060	−3.67	<0.001
Social linkages	3.058**(1.419, 6.590)	1.198	2.85	0.004
Migration experience	2.614**(1.26, 5.42)	0.973	2.58	0.010
Selling of assets	0.556	0.186	−1.75	0.080
Number of oxen-owned	1.289	0.251	1.30	0.192
Number of Mules owned	3.244**(1.49, 7.062)	1.288	2.97	0.003
Landholding size	1.157	0.341	0.50	0.621
Farmland topography
Mixed	1.337	0.543	0.72	0.474
Plain	2.697*(1.147, 6.34)	1.176	2.27	0.023
Access to credit	1.565	0.704	1.00	0.319
Access to drinking water	3.108*(1.195, 8.086)	1.516	2.32	0.020
Access to health services	1.348	0.652	0.62	0.537
Use of fertilizer	5.326***(2.156, 13.16)	2.457	3.63	<0.001
Maize producers	2.023*(1.07, 3.823)	0.657	2.17	0.030
Wheat producers	1.829	0.899	1.23	0.219
Kebele
Birko	1.564	0.927	0.75	0.450
Daria	1.083	0.75	0.12	0.908
_cons	0.018***(0.002, 0.201)	0.022	−3.27	0.001
Number of obs.	353
Number of predictor variables	21
Model prediction success	80.74%
Pseudo R^2	0.4219

Notes: ***, ** and * show statistical significance at 0.001, 0.01 and 0.05 level; CI is confidence interval; Odds ratios adjusted for each variable shown.

Figure 2. Coping strategies of food insecurity by farming households in Bugna, northern Ethiopia.

Figure 3. The distribution of available kcal in AE in Bugna, northern Ethiopia, 2020.

Table

No	Name	Relation to head	Age	Sex	Level of educ	Economically active	Occupation
1
2

Table

Food items	Unit (bowls/kg)	Quantity per week	Unit price	Source (s) (refer to source codes)
Maize
Teff
Sorghum
Pea
Been
Barely
Wheat
Onion
Garlic
Potato
Vegetables
Banana
Lentils
Others()

Table

Source (on-farm)	Unit price	Total income

Table

Off/Nonfarm activities	Units	Quantity	Monetary value

Table

Code	Animal asset	Yes	Quantity
	Cows
	Oxen
	Heifers/calves
	Sheep
	Goats
	Mules
	Horses
	Donkeys
	Chickens

Table

Type of agricultural inputs	Responses 1. Yes 2. No
1.Chemical fertilizers
2.Pesticides, herbicides
3.Improved seeds
Other (specify)

Table

Coping strategy (Short term strategies)	No	Yes		Rank

Table

Long term strategies

Availability of data and materials

The datasets used and/or analyzed in this study are available upon reasonable request from the corresponding author.