One of the most fundamental requirements for human survival is food. A nation must have enough food in terms of quantity and quality for all its citizens in order to maintain its progress. Long-term food insecurity will result in hunger and starvation, both of which can be fatal. Thus, access to and availability of sufficient food is prerequisites for a population to be well-nourished. The food security issues gained prominence in the 1970s after which it has been given considerable attention. In Ethiopia, the food security issue has been also among the government’s priority areas of interest. Despite the fact that most nations experience varying degrees of food insecurity, 75% of those affected reside in rural areas of developing nations [1]. Even though FAO (2013) estimates show that the proportion of the world’s population suffering from undernourishment (1,023 million in 2009 to 925 million in 2013 million people in the world still remain food insecure).

According to [2] Ethiopia has reduced its overall levels of poverty and food insecurity during the past ten years. But poverty and food insecurity continue to be major obstacles. The basic calorie requirement for a healthy and active life is out of reach for more than 30% of the population. Acute malnutrition affects 10% of children under the age of five and 44% of children under the age of five who have chronic malnutrition.

Ethiopia is dealing with difficult issues with food security brought on by demographic, socioeconomic, and environmental crises that have a negative impact on agriculture. Due to this, agriculture has been insufficient for a number of years, making it difficult for the nation to sustainably feed its population at home and contributing to both chronic and temporary food insecurity [3]. According to the SNNPR livelihood profile from 2005 Wolaita Zone is characterized by persistent poverty and food insecurity. In a similar vein, Yeshak [4] noted that the rural population in the Zone is increasingly susceptible to famine and drought.

Food insecurity at the household level arises from several causes. However, Devereux and Maxwell (2001) argue that the concepts and problems surrounding food insecurity should be viewed as a failure of local livelihoods to ensure access to enough food at the household level rather than just as a failure of agriculture to produce enough food at the regional and national levels.

Many studies show that most of its households are able to feed themselves with sufficient food only for less than six to nine months of a year [5]. However, in Kindo Koysha Woreda a large number of people chronically suffer food insecurity. According to the current Woreda office of Agriculture report, more than 19,000 people registered with the Productive Safety Net Program (PSNP), and more than 15, 200 people received basic food rations. More of these households were concentrated in the rural areas of the Woreda. Therefore, selecting the best treatments to address it requires a thorough understanding of the factors that affect food security in rural households. With the particular aims of assessing rural household food security status and identifying factors influencing rural household food security in the rural areas of Wolaita. Therefore, the objectives of this paper are to analyze the status of household food security and investigate its determinants in rural communities of Kindo Koysha Woreda, Wolaita Zone.

The paper has indeed employed an intensive review of a range of official reports, journal articles, and conference proceedings that were previously published. The paper was developed through a literature survey approach. In addition to that it has collected primary data in the form of KII and FGD and secondary data to know the status of food security and its determinants.

Sampling technique

Out of the 21 Woredas in the Wolaita Zone, one was selected purposively because considering the size of people, mostly affected by food shortage, and the number of the beneficiary of safety net programs and food aid compared to the others in the Zone. In addition, based on my background information of the area, two Kebele were selected by using a purposive sampling technique, and 12 community elders in each Kebele were selected. Primary data collection was conducted using interviews and two focus group discussions who were supposed to have clear insight into the overall context of the Woreda.

Concept of Food Security

The concept of “food security” has emerged as the acknowledgment of the individual, national, and global impacts of production shortfalls and market failures in agriculture. It is modified through different years with various concepts addition. Food security is defined as adequate availability of and access to food for households to meet the minimum energy requirements as recommended for active and healthy life (Hussein et al., 2013). This definition anchors on the food production and affordability of food. It underestimated the food utilization and the stability over the period. Thus, the latest definition that refined the one adopted in the 1996 World Food Summit states that food security (is) a situation that exists when all people, at all times, have physical, social, and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life [1]. This definition covers the aspects of availability, access, utilization, and the stability of the individuals, households or nation to be food secure

Dimensions of food security

According to Jrad et al. (2010) elaborated on four dimensions of food security as food availability, food accessibility, food utilization and stability.

Food availability: Refers to the physical presence of food which may come from own production, purchases from internal market or import from overseas. Similarly, Gregory et al. (2005) explained that food availability refers to the physical existence of food stocks for consumption be it from own production or on the markets. On national level food availability is a function of the combination of domestic food stocks, commercial food imports, food aid and domestic food production, as well as the underlying determinants of each of these factors.

Food access: Household food access is the ability to obtain sufficient food of guaranteed quality and quantity to meet nutritional requirements of all household members. Here, the food should be at right place at the right time and people should have economic freedom or purchasing power to buy adequate and nutritious food (Jrad et al., 2010). On the other hand, Kuwornu et al. (2011) explained that food access is determined by physical and financial resources as well as by social and political factors. Access depends normally on; income available to the household, the distribution of income within the household, the price of food and other factors worth mentioning are individual’s access to market, social and institutional entitlement/rights.

Food utilization: Refers to ingestion and digestion of adequate and quality food for maintenance of good health. This means proper biological use of food, requiring a diet that contains sufficient energy and essential nutrients as well as knowledge of food storage, processing, basic nutrition, child care and illness management (Jrad et al., 2010).

Stability of food: Refers to the continuous supply of adequate food all year round without shortages (Jrad et al., 2010). To be food secure a population, household, or individual must have access to adequate food at all times. They should not be at risk of losing access to food as a consequence of a shock (e.g., an economic or climatic crisis), or cyclically (e.g., during a particular period of the year, seasonal food insecurity). The concept of stability can therefore refer to both the availability and access dimensions of food security.

Status of Household Food security

Historically, during the fall of the imperial regime and its replacement by the military government, that food security became a concern in public policy discourse, and a variety of program initiatives were put in place to tackle the problem. Since then there has been increased awareness of the complex causes of food shortages and a growing determination on the part of decision-makers to bring to an end the blight of hunger and malnutrition that has been so much a part of the daily lives of millions of poor and vulnerable people in the country. Over these years, the goal of achieving food security has been pursued in various forms, involving both short and long term programs, combining not just growth in food production but also environmental protection, water management and irrigation projects, employment creation, resettlement and credit provision to mention only some of the main measures costing both the government and its international development partners huge resources.

Domestically, the contributions of non-state actors which have been actively engaged in relief, rehabilitation and food security endeavors in many areas of rural Ethiopia from the second half of the 1970s. When, in 2003, the government appointed the National Coalition for Food Security (NCFSE) and its food security program (FSP) was adopted by the government for its poverty reduction strategy, The FSP established a number of key interventions to tackle food insecurity, of which the main ones were the Productive Safety Net Program (PSNP) for chronically vulnerable households.

FSP that involved loans and agricultural packages and was later transformed into the Household Asset Building Program (HAPB), voluntary rural resettlement for populations in land poor areas, and the Complementary Community Investment (CCI) focusing on medium-scale infrastructure development that cannot be undertaken through the PSNP public works. Regarding this, in the study area the PSNP provides resource transfers (in kind, in cash or both) to beneficiaries in two ways: either as payment for labor in public work projects or as direct support to individuals who are unable to work for health, old age and other similar reasons (Figure 1).

Figure 1: FGD with PSNP beneficiaries and rural households in the study area.

Determinants of rural household food security

The problem of food insecurity in different parts of the world in general and particularly in Ethiopia is caused by different factors; empirical evidences showed that food insecurity is caused by low per capita income; low and unequal income distributions affect food, particularly low volatile growth rates in agriculture, unemployment and underemployment, small or declining farm size, inequality of domestic distribution, low land use, social discrimination, population growth, market access, food taboos: certain restrictions on food consumption, poverty and climate insecurity due to cultural and social norms, climate change, deforestation, landslides, reduced soil fertility, political instability, poverty, marginalization, ethnic and low-caste groups, and high maternal and infant mortality; Beyene and Muche, 2010; Burley, 2013. Furthermore, the problem of food insecurity is not only caused by insufficient supply of food, but also due to the lack of purchasing power and access at national and household levels. Abafita and Kim, 2014; Abera 2021; Astemir 2014 and Habtewold 2018 revealed that household head age and education level, rainfall shock and household size, farmland size, land quality and credit, farm income, fertilizer use and access to bull ownership, education level, land ownership, technology adoption, economic activity, off-farm participation, soil conservation practices and per capita consumption expenditures, access to credit and remittances, and distance from markets were identified as major determinants of food security in different parts of Ethiopia. In general, for long decades, food insecurity continues to be one of the major problems challenging the country Ethiopia. Therefore, reducing the determinate of food security is an important strategy for rural households to achieving food self-sufficiency and poverty reduction among rural households.

According to the KII interview and FGD of this study there was a food security problem at household level. From this data, most of households did not fulfill their food in year round and food gaps appeared during the finished time of the last year production and did not harvest the ongoing year production. According to the responses from both FGD and KII the main vulnerable parts of the communities were female headed households, elderly headed households, landless and small plot of land owned households and disabled headed households. The main challenges were scarcity of land (landless), crop and livestock pest and disease, scarcity of improve crop varieties in amount and type, increase the price of input and other industrial products, poor extension service, natural hazards, and population pressure, poor infrastructure facilities. In study kebele response of FGD and KII the coping mechanism of communities during shocks were labour, unsafe loan, sell of wood and charcoal, child labor, rent out of land, sell of shoats, and sometimes begging. The coping mechanism of the communities used for temporarily solutions, through time affects household assets in case of high market price, increment of the type, frequencies and coverage of hazards makes the community highly vulnerable to food security. Accordingly, based on evidence from community dwellers during discussion with participants in the study area, the principal factors that determine household food security are as follows.

Age of the Household Head: It is true and our community (study kebele) people perceive that an older household head devotes his/her time on farming activities compared to young farmers. Young people spend much time in towns and prefer urban life than the rural for a number of reasons. Moreover, as age increases, one can acquire more knowledge and experience becoming effective in exploiting these experiences. Therefore this term paper supports the assumption that when the heads age advances, they were expected to have stable economy, accumulate wealth, experience and food secure than younger heads, also older household heads were expected to have better access to land than younger heads because older farmers usually reach the land from their grandparents whilst younger farmers either have to pass the time for land distribution or work together with their families. Therefore, the paper also agreed with the previous research finding of [6].

Family Size Of The Households: It is obvious that the number of family size increases, family food demand also increases and the possible explanation in the study area as family size increases, the amount of food for consumption in one's household increases thereby that additional household member shares the limited food resources. According to Mago S. [7], confirmed that larger household sizes are associated with a negative food security status as larger household sizes require increase food expenditure and competition for limited resources. A  study  made  in  Rwanda  about  the determinants  of  household  food  insecurity  in developing  countries  by  Jean  (2015)  also supported  this  finding  as  the  household  size increase  the  probability  of  being  food  insecure also increased.

Dependency Ratio: Contextually, this paper agreed with Aschalew [8] finding as dependency ratio increased, the probability of the household became food insecure increased. This study agreed with the study of which affirmed, due to scarcity of resources and increase in family size, especially the non-working member’s put pressure on consumption than production Aschalew [8]. From this study, consistent to this a negative relationship was expected between the dependency ratio and food security.

Size of Landholding: KII and FGDs indicated that the size of land cultivated, as a basic input in farming, was significantly associated with food security status of a household. Land in the Kindo Koysha Woreda also in the whole rural Wolaita served as means of coping mechanism during serious food shortage and collateral to receive credit service. This study is in line with (Shiferaw et al; 2003), observed that greater efficiencies in the use of resources are associated with the large farms than the small farms.

Livestock Holding: Livestock are the farmers’ important sources of wealth as farmers accumulate wealth in terms of livestock. During focus group discussion with rural households in study area, they perceived that households who possess large livestock size are expected to be less vulnerable to food insecurity. Livestock contribute to food security status of households in different ways such as by providing cash income, nutrition (meat, milk, etc.), draft power, manure… etc. in the study area. Also livestock served as savings of assets and used for coping food insecurity problems during food shortage. The households with large herd size had better chance to earn more income from livestock production. This result is in agreement with the prior expectation and the findings of Shiferaw et al (2003). This in turn enabled them to purchase food when they were in short of their stock, and invest in purchase of farm inputs that increase food production, and thus ensuring food security at household level.

Educational Level of Households: The educational attainment of the head of the household was important in explaining the variations in household food security. Based on KII’s information of the study area, the effect of education on food security works indirectly by influencing the actions of the person in how to make a living. Literate individuals were very ambitious to get information and very curious to accept agricultural or livestock extension services, and soil and water conservation practices including any other income generating activities. It was expected that educated households were positively associated to food security and negatively associated with food insecurity. This study agreed with the previous studies done by [8].

Agriculture Shock: Food security is dependent on agricultural production the household vulnerable to agricultural risk and occurrence of different shocks like, crop and livestock diseases, limitation of agricultural inputs, shortage of land size, and lacks of awareness and creation of market opportunities, capital accumulation, and wealth creation. This study in lined with the hypothesis and the study done by [9].

High Food Inflation: Figures from CSA show that price increases of essential foods have been going on since at least 2005, but it was in 2008 and later in 2011 that they accelerated quite dramatically. Among food items, prices of cereals, which are the basic diet of most of the population, soared much more dramatically than those of other commodities. During the time of discussion with local communities, as they said, the problem was compounded by the fact that food inflation was accompanied by shortages of basic commodities in urban as well as rural markets, and part of the reason for this was that grain merchants made more profit selling the foodstuffs in the neighboring countries than selling them to local consumers.

Participation in PSNP:  Productive  safety  net program  is  mainly  engaged  in  supporting  food insecure  farm  households  so  as  to  reduce  or minimize  problems  associated  with  food insecurity.  From  the  study area it  was  revealed  that majority  of  the  food  insecure  farm  households were participating in  PSNP as compared to food secured farmers ( Figure 2).

Figure 2: Conceptual framework of Determinants of Rural HH Security.

Agriculture is the most important economic activity of rural households in Kindo Koysha Woreda.  However, as described by FGDs and KIIs; age of household, Participation in PSNP, educational level of households, shortage of land size, dependency ratio, crop and livestock disease, lack of agricultural inputs, etc were found the major problems of agricultural activities to achieve food security in rural household level. Though there was no baseline data about the status of  the  Woreda  in  terms  of  food  insecurity  at household level, it was clear that more than half of the  Woreda  Kebele  administrations  were  categorized  as  food insecure  Woreda  to  be  supported  by  the government  and recently more than 57 non-governmental organizations in Wolaita like PSNP, Terepeza Development Association, Wonta Rural Development Association (WRDA), World Vission and etc. to  overcome  their  food  security  problem. Therefore, Governmental and those NGO’s have to work more to minimize the food insecurity status of the Wolaita Zone and particularly drought prone Woredas and rural Kebele of Kindo Koysha in household level in general.

• The collaboration of Zonal administration and Wolaita Soddo University had to offer various training, research and community service programs that are directly and indirectly aimed at improving the rural communities’ food security. In addition, it is high time to not only carry out research on food security but also to present the results in understandable and scientific manner to policy makers, researchers and the general public.
• During the discussion with farmers and community elders, among the factors that are expected to affect household food insecurity are; family size, total income, loss of crops, livestock holding and distance from market were repeatedly raised in two cession of discussion. Therefore what I recommend that larger family size; it worsens the problem of meeting food requirement. Hence, extension must work on awareness creation on the impacts of population growth at all levels. Since livestock is an important source of wealth that could contribute to food security in the study area. Therefore, the livestock sector should be strengthened through the provision or supply of better management and veterinary services. The infestation of pests and other risks observed in the study area were causing crop losses that directly contribute to food insecurity. Hence, early warning  and  readiness  should  be done by extensions to protect pests and insects  and  also  the  application  of  post-harvest management.

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