Impact of soil and water conservation practices on household vulnerability to food insecurity in eastern Ethiopia: endogenous switching regression and propensity score matching approach

Million Sileshi (), Reuben Kadigi, Khamaldin Mutabazi and Stefan Sieber
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Million Sileshi: Sokoine University of Agriculture
Reuben Kadigi: Sokoine University of Agriculture
Khamaldin Mutabazi: Sokoine University of Agriculture
Stefan Sieber: Humboldt-University Berlin

Food Security: The Science, Sociology and Economics of Food Production and Access to Food, 2019, vol. 11, issue 4, No 4, 797-815

Abstract: Abstract Governmental and developmental partners invest substantial resources to reduce land and water degradation in order to upgrade agricultural productivity, thus reducing food insecurity and related vulnerability in Sub-Saharan Africa. Understanding the impact of soil and water conservation on food insecurity outcomes would be a significant step toward improving environmental conditions, while ensuring sustainable and increased agricultural production. Therefore, this article analyzes the impact of adopting soil and water conservation on food insecurity and related vulnerability outcomes of farming households using a sample of 408 households selected using a multi-stage stratified sampling procedure from three districts in eastern Ethiopia. Vulnerability as expected poverty (three-step Feasible General Least Squares) is employed to analyze the vulnerability of sample households in the context of food insecurity. In addition, endogenous switching regressions with propensity score matching methods are combined to obtain consistent impact estimates. The study findings reveal that education and sex of household head, use of irrigation and fertilizer, source of information, and cultivated land are the main factors influencing the adoption of soil and water conservation practices. Moreover, the adoption of soil and water conservation not only positively impacts the per capita food consumption expenditure and net crop value, but it also significantly reduces the probability of farmers being food insecure, vulnerable to food insecurity, as well as being transient and chronically food insecure. Therefore, policymakers and development organizations should consider soil and water conservation as a main strategy to reduce land degradation and improve the livelihoods of the rural farm households.

Keywords: Soil and water conservation; Endogenous switching regression; Vulnerability to food insecurity; Ethiopia (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
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DOI: 10.1007/s12571-019-00943-w

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