Background: Household food and nutrition insecurity continued to be a development and policy agenda in Ethiopia. Assessing the patterns and determinants of household dietary diversity is an important area of research given its importance for policy uptake in the country. This study is, therefore, initiated to identify the dominant food groups consumed by households and to investigate the determinants of household dietary diversity in the country. Method: We used data from the 4^th wave of the Ethiopian socioeconomic survey. The survey data for this study included 3,115 households living in rural areas (hereafter called ‘rural households’). Household Dietary Diversity Score (HDDS) was calculated and categorized as per the FAO’s recommendation: low HDDS category for those who consume three or less food groups, medium HDDS for those who consume four to six, and high HDDS for those who consume seven and more food groups during the past seven days. Ordinal logistic regression model was employed to estimate the determinants of rural household’s dietary diversity. Results: Cereals were the most dominant food group consumed by 96.4% of the households followed by pulses, which was consumed by 82% of the households Nutrition-dense food commodities such as lean meat, vegetables and fruits were the least consumed food groups by households in Ethiopia. In terms of determinants of dietary diversity, female headed households have 38% more chance of consuming diverse foods compared to their male-headed counterparts (AOR = 1.38, 95% CI: 1.10, 1.73). Household heads who completed secondary education and above have 62% more chance of consuming diverse foods compared to uneducated household heads (AOR = 1.62, 95% CI: 1.2, 2.30). Household heads who are single have 37% less chance of consuming diverse foods compared to those household heads who are married (AOR = 0.63, 95% CI: 0.50, 0.80). Those households located in Harari regional state and in the rural surroundings of Diredawa town have 6.56 times more chance of consuming diverse foods compared to those households living in Tigray and Amhara regional states (AOR = 6.56, 95% CI: 4.60, 9.37). The results also highlighted that households who are in the upper wealth category have 9 times more chance of consuming diverse foods compared to those households who are the lower wealth category (AOR = 8.54, 95% CI: 6.79, 11.98).

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to identify the proportion of farmers with constrained and unconstrained participation in the agricultural credit market and estimate the parameters that determine agricultural credit market participation in Finoteselam town, Ethiopia. Design/methodology/approach – The study followed cross-sectional study design where primary data were collected from 210 households through a questionnaire survey in Finoteselam town, north western Ethiopia. A combination of purposive and random sampling techniques was employed. Descriptive statistics were used to identify the proportion of farmers with different levels of participation in the agricultural credit market. The bivariate probit model was estimated to identify the parameters that determine smallholder credit market participation. Findings – The study revealed that 48 percent of smallholder farmers are constrained non-participating (i.e. rationed out) from the agricultural credit market due to lack of access to the service, 44.8 percent of them are constrained participating, 2.4 percent unconstrained participating and 4.8 percent of them are unconstrained non-participating. Estimation results of the bivariate probit model indicated that variables such as high dependency burden, large landholding size, household's labor endowment, participation in off-farm employment activities and incurring unforeseen expenses increased the probability of households to participate in agricultural credit markets. On the other hand, village dummy variable, old age of household head and borrowing from other sources decreased the probability of households participating in the agricultural credit market. Practical implications – The findings raise policy concerns to devise a mechanism for creating a functioning rural insurance market, improve the labor market for encouraging off-farm employment activities, devise wealth-creating schemes and address the credit need of those smallholder farmers who are still rationed out from the agricultural credit market. Originality/value – Little has been done on the subject of agricultural credit market participation in Ethiopia. Hence, this research will add to the thin literature on the subject.

The article examines the magnitude and determinants of rural poverty at Zeghe Peninsula. It is done based on the dimension of poverty expressed in terms of consumption expenditure. Data were collected through questionnaire survey from 200 sample households. The Foster-Greer-Thorbeck (FGT) measure of intensity of poverty and the logit model were used. FGT is composed of additively decomposable poverty indices of incidence, depth and severity. Based on the FGT result, 68.5% are poor, and 18.7% constitutes the poorest of the poor in the Peninsula (i.e., severity). The percentage shortfall of consumption expenditure of the poor from the poverty line (i.e., depth) is 32.8%. From the logit model, variables like large land holding size, better suitability of land for coffee production, participation of households in contractual farming activities, engagement of households in petty trading, beekeeping and fishing activities decreased the probability of households to be poor. High dependency ratio and participation of households in firewood-selling activities increased the chance of households to fall into poverty. This implies that any development endeavor that aims at improving the welfare of people of the Peninsula should focus on these correlates of poverty.