ISSN 2384-5058
Abstract
Accepted 30th June
Food security exists when all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life” (World Food Summit, 1996). Food security is one of the major components of food policy along with production (input-output) policy, price policy, trade policy, monetary policy, fiscal policy and food aid. The problem of food security cannot be solved only by the effort of ministry of agriculture. Millions of households in rural areas of Ethiopia suffer from chronic food insecurity and receive food aid on an annual basis. In order to find a longer-term solution to the problem, the government of Ethiopia, with the active collaboration of a range of donors, has designed a Food Security Programme within the framework of Ethiopia’s Poverty Reduction Strategy. The programme combines a variety of interventions that, as a whole, should lead to the graduation from food insecurity to food security for a substantial number of households. Food insecurity in Ethiopia derives directly from dependence on undiversified livelihoods based on low input, low-output rain fed agriculture. Ethiopian farmers do not produce enough food even in good rainfall years to meet consumption requirements. Given the fragile natural resource base and climatic uncertainty, current policy emphases on agricultural intensification are misguided, while institutional constraints such as inflexible land tenure and ethnic federalism perpetuate this unviable livelihood system.
Keywords: Causes, intervention, food insecurity, Ethiopia