This study explores the role of gender-based decision-making in the adoption of improved maize varieties. The primary data were collected in 2018 from 560 farm households in Dawuro Zone, Ethiopia, and were comparatively analyzed across gender categories of households: male decision-making, female decision-making and joint decision-making, using a double-hurdle model. The results show that the intensity of improved maize varieties adopted on plots managed by male, female, and joint decision-making households are significantly different. This effect diminishes in the model when we take other factors into account. Using the gender of the heads of households and agricultural decision-maker, the current study did not find significant evidence of gender difference in the rate and intensity of adoption of improved maize varieties. The intensity of adoption of improved maize varieties is lower for female-headed households where decisions are made jointly by men and women, compared to the male-headed households where decisions are made jointly. As the economic status is a key driver of adoption of improved maize varieties, it is recommended that the policies and programs that aim at developing and disseminating quality maize seeds in southern Ethiopia should emphatically support economically less endowed but more gender egalitarian joint decision-making households, especially female-headed ones.

This study examines the impact of gender differences on maize productivity in Dawuro Zone, southern Ethiopia. Our study addressed the limitations of the previous studies in two ways. First, the study separately assessed gender differences in productivity between de facto female-headed households and de jure female-headed households and revealed that female-headed households are not homogenous. Second, the study separately examined the impacts of the covariates on male-headed households and female-headed households using an exogenous switching treatment effect model. We find the existence of gender differences in maize productivity between male-headed households and female-headed households. The maize productivity of male-headed households was overall 44.3% higher than that of female-headed households. However, if female-headed households received the same return on their resources as male-headed households, their productivity would increase by 42.3%. This suggests agricultural policy should target female-headed households to help reduce the productivity gap between male-headed households and female-headed households. Finally, the distributions of the gender differentials between male-headed households and female-headed households are more pronounced at mid-levels of productivity.

Even though there is long-held belief that urban populations are better off, or even favoured than rural populations, the recent food and financial crises have highlighted the problem of urban food insecurity in developing countries. Hence, the overall objective of this study was to examine the determinants of food insecurity among urban households in Addis Ababa city. To do so, both descriptive statistics and econometric analysis were employed. Descriptive statistics used Foster, Greer and Thorbeck distributional measure of food insecurity while econometric analysis used binary logistic regression model to analyze the data of a set of socio-economic variables as explanatory variables and food insecurity as independent variable. The head count index shows that 58,16 % of the total households are below the food insecurity line. The food insecurity gap and severity were 20 % and 9,4 %, respectively. The result of the logistic regression model estimate indicates that out of the 10 factors included, 6 were found to have a significant influence on the probability of being food insecure at less than 10 % significance level. The variables considered were household size, age of household head, household head education, and access to credit, household asset possession, and access to employment. Efforts should be made to improve income earning capacity of households, their education level with particular focus on vocational training, reduce household size with a view to reducing their dependency ratio and access of credit to the needy and trained people needs to be provided with proper targeting criterion

The prevalence of food insecurity is much higher in East Africa than in other parts of the world. Climate change and associated variability are important contributors to food insecurity in the region. Using primary data collected in 2018/19 from Ethiopia, Kenya and Tanzania, this study examines the links between the prevalence of household food insecurity (the access to food dimension) and vulnerability to climate change in East Africa. The Household Food Insecurity Access Scale (HFIAS) was constructed to measure the prevalence of household food insecurity, and an ordered probit econometrics model was used to investigate the factors affecting the prevalence rates. The aggregate results show that 52% of the total sampled households in the region were food-secure; 15% and 26% were mildly food-secure and moderately food-insecure, respectively; and the remaining 7% were severely food-insecure. The ordered probit results suggest that exposure to climate change extremes and crop losses caused by these extremes significantly contribute to the prevalence of food insecurity across countries in East Africa. The results also indicate that households’ adaptive capacity plays a significant role in reducing the prevalence of food insecurity. The demographic/human, social, financial, physical, and natural assets/capital of the household also play a significant role in reducing household-level food insecurity in Ethiopia, Kenya, and Tanzania.

Climate change threatens the sustainability of food production among farmers in Kenya who depend on rain‐fed agriculture. To minimize the negative impacts of climate change, farmers have sought to adopt different adaptation strategies. This study investigates factors influencing farmers’ choice of climate change adaptation strategies and associated effects on their food security in Kenya using data collected from 540 farmers from six counties. A multivariate probit, censored least absolute deviation (CLAD), and propensity score matching (PSM) models were employed to identify the determinants in the farmers’ choice of climate change adaptation strategies, the number of adaptation strategies adopted, and the effect of climate change adaptation strategies on their food security, respectively. Results show that planting drought-tolerant crop varieties (55%), growing diversified crops (34%), growing early maturing crops (22%), and diversifying the sources of household income (18%) were the four major adaptation strategies used by the farmers in the study area. Younger farmers and those with higher education levels are more likely to use these climate change adaptation practices. The number of adaptation strategies used was positively associated with male farmers, education level, family size, land size, farm income, extension contact, training, and information access. The farmers who adopt one adaptation strategy have higher food security status (approximately 7–11%) than those who do not. If they adopt two adaptation strategies, their food security status increases by approximately 11–14%; if they adopt three adaptation strategies, their food security status increases by nearly 12–15%; and if they adopt four adaptation practices, their food security status increases by about 14–18%, compared to those who do not adopt any strategy. Thus, the farmers’ climate change adaptation practices have positive food security effects in Kenya according to the number of adaptation strategies adopted.

Using primary data collected from 560 farm households in Dawuro zone, southern Ethiopia, this study analyzes the gender gaps in food security among male, female, and joint decision-making farm households. It examines the factors inducing gender gaps among the households of those three categories. The results show that female decision-making households have a lower probability of ensuring food-security and a higher probability of being transitionally and chronically food-insecure. Joint decision-making households showed a higher probability of falling into the chronically food-insecure category. The decomposition results show significant gender gaps between male and female decision-making households in terms of food-secure, transitory food-insecure, and chronically food-insecure categories. Overall, both the endowment and return effects account for the gaps; however, the magnitude of the effect from the return is higher than from the endowment on significant gaps in the food-secure, transitory, and chronically food-insecure categories. Hence, there is a need for policies that not only ensure equal levels of productive resources but also help households build their capacity in order to improve both transitory and chronically food insecure situations.