FACTORS AFFECTING LIVELIHOOD DIVERSIFICATION AND IMPLICATIONS ON HOUSEHOLD FOOD SECURITY IN BORANA ZONE: THE CASE OF YABELLO AND DUGDA DAWA WOREDAS

Abstract

As livelihood diversification is the act of pursuing more than one livelihood strategy, there are a number of factors that encourage or discourage household involvement. Households engage in diverse livelihood strategies away from purely livestock or crop production towards non-farm, off-farm and combination of these activities to broaden and generate additional income for survival and cope with growing harsh and difficult environment. This paper analyses the factors affecting livelihood diversification strategies of pastoral and agro-pastoral households to ensure household food security in Yaballo and Dugda Dawa woredas. Multi stage sampling procedure was employed and 120 respondents were selected from four pastoral associations of Dugda Dawa and Yabello woredas of Borana zone. Descriptive statistics and multinomial logistic regression model were used to analyze the set objectives. Multinomial logistic regression result shows that out of the 16 hypothesized variables, the seven(agro-ecology, household head sex, household head education, household head marriage status, access to financial institute saving and credit, household food security status and household total income) were found to significantly influence livelihood strategies at less than 10% probability levels. The model result indicated that the household head marriage status and household access to saving and credit influenced positively and significantly the choice of agriculture alone, while, the household total income, food security status and household head sex negatively and significantly affected the diversification of livelihood into nonfarm, off-farm and combining nonfarm and off- farm activities. Similarly, agro-ecology and education of household head had negative and significant influence on the household decision of selecting diversified livelihood strategies into agriculture + off-farm activities. Capacity building, making pastorals’ and agro-pastorals’ to engage in off farm and nonfarm activities, and promoting economic and social institutional support by government and NGOs are recommended to enhance positive livelihood diversification.