Effects Of Livelihood Diversification On Food Se- curity Status Of Farm Households In North Gondar Zone A Case Study Of Gondar Zuria Woreda

Although still of central importance, farming on its own is increasingly unable to provide a sufficient means of survival in rural areas. Further, the asset base of farmers is not diversified, so loss of farming productivity during severe drought results in the total loss of assets and hence results in food insecurity and dependency on food aid. Therefore, it was crucial to identify the causes and consequences of food insecurity; assess the different livelihood strategies and their role to household food security status; and examine the effect of livelihood diversification to household food security status in order to recommend possible alternative actions. To achieve these objectives, data was collected from primary and secondary sources to understand the determinants, events and processes involved in people‟s livelihoods. Livelihood strategies and food security status of 120 farm households were examined. The qualitative data was analyzed in the form of narratives, content analysis, comparison and triangulation where as the quantitative data was analyzed using descriptive statistics, and chi-square to test the significance. The major findings of the study imply that rapid population growth, resource degradation and shrinkage of cultivated land, drought, land fragmentation, weak financial and institutional organizations have puts the farm households at risk of food insecurity. This necessitates the need for enormous efforts in interventions in areas that help households to diversify their livelihoods both within and outside the agricultural system even though the chisquare test indicates insignificant associations. However, based on this result the researcher did not jump to the conclusion that diversification has no effect on food security status of farm households, but this result may be due to the different types of livelihood diversification strategies, their nature, and level and I recommend further in-depth determinants studies/research for future policies/strategies and concerned stakeholders working towards achieving food security must coordinate and intensify their efforts to get feasible and tangible outcomes.