Food Security Situations and Resource Endowments of Rural Households in D’Irashe Special Woreda in Southern Ethiopia: A Comparative Study of Male-and Female-Headed Households

Kite, Asfaw Gnefato (2006) Food Security Situations and Resource Endowments of Rural Households in D’Irashe Special Woreda in Southern Ethiopia: A Comparative Study of Male-and Female-Headed Households. Masters thesis, Addis Ababa University.

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Abstract

The thesis is aimed at assessing the food security situations and resource endowments of rural households in D’irashe Special Woreda. The content however, is limited to the realities in three sample PKAs of D'irashe Special Woreda. D'irashe Special Woreda is found in SNNPR. It is located 557kms south of Addis Ababa on the right side of the main road to Jinka town. The thesis begins with introducing the background, the problem statement, objectives including significance of the study. It proceeds by reviewing aspects of female heads, food security, productive resource endowments and coping strategies. It then describes the physical and socio-economic features of the woreda. Questionnaire survey, key informant interviews, case studies and focus group discussions are used to collect the data. Descriptive stastics such as percentage and mean are computed. Female-headed households play an essential role in food security of household as producers, purchasers, providers and processors of food than male heads do. Male and female seem to have an equal participation in farm production activities: planting, weeding, threshing, transporting and storing. Besides, collecting fire woods, fetching water and grinding grain have been found to be means of ensuring food security. For many female household heads' time is spent by these daily routine activities while their involvement in other income generating activities is constrained. Moreover, results of the study revealed that female-headed households have limited rights of ownership in productive resources as well as their fruits of labor than male-headed households. Lack of access to and control over key assets such as land and larger livestocks affect the role of female heads of households. They have little power to make decisions on selling of the larger animals and rent or lease of their farmland. Their limited role in these aspects potentially affects their purchasing power and access to food or cash income. Female household heads have too small farmlands and shortage of labor than male-headed households to provide enough food for most households. Rural credit institution does not exist in the study area. Poor soil fertility, shortage of rain, and crop diseases and pests are among other factors causing household food insecurity. All these factors affect their contribution to the households. Own-farm production does not satisfy family needs more than 8 months. Hence, households must meet their own family demands from sources other than ownfarm production. Local non-agricultural activities and household coping strategies are too limited. They find it difficult to fill the current gap of food insecurity. This has resulted in the household heads having less purchasing power to have little share to participate in the market. Therefore, from the policy point of view, it is important to give more weight for women-headed households since they have remained almost invisible to policy makers and rural development practitioners. It is also important to encourage female-headed households to engage in cash activities like livestocks rearing and cash crops to enhance their purchasing power. Besides, improving agricultural production and productivity through the promotion of agroecologically appropriate technological packages are thus vital to ensure household food security.

Item Type:	Thesis (Masters)
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HQ The family. Marriage. Woman H Social Sciences > HT Communities. Classes. Races H Social Sciences > HV Social pathology. Social and public welfare S Agriculture > S Agriculture (General)
Divisions:	Africana
Depositing User:	Tim Khabala
Date Deposited:	25 Sep 2018 09:30
Last Modified:	25 Sep 2018 09:30
URI:	http://thesisbank.jhia.ac.ke/id/eprint/5547

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