Abstract

Food insecurity is a global challenge, particularly in developing country like Ethiopia, which is aggravated by a lack of adequate food availability, rapid population growth and COVID-19; it has serious consequences for the health and well-being of adults and children. Although several studies have been conducted in central and agrarian communities, there is little evidence of studies on food insecurity in the most remote communities like Southern Omo. This study aimed to assess the contributing factors and coping strategies related to food insecurity among rural agro pastoralist community. A descriptive qualitative study was conducted in southern Ethiopia. A total of 18 in-depth interview participants were interviewed and moreover 5 focus group discussions were conducted in total of 53 pregnant women, until data saturations. Field notes were taken and voice recoded during each sessions. The information were transcribed verbatim and analyzed, thematically supported by Atlas ti 7 software. The findings were presented in theme, sub-theme and category with quote. The study confirmed that, there is an important contributing factors affecting food security such as: drought, rain shortage, climate change, food sources always from purchasing, food aid community, living within a pastoralist community, poor soil fertility, Omo river not used for irrigation, conflict between ethnic group, increment of population number, and unavailable guideline were the main contributing factors for household food insecurity. Moreover, in-depth interview and FGD participants provided their opinion on household food insecurity coping strategies like selling cow/goat and buying maize powder, eating uncommon tree (“negode”), getting help from food aid, access of safety net, borrowing food/crops from neighboring (“kebele”) ethnic families, eating unacceptable leaves and branches, selling fire wood and grass in town and doing labor work at town. The study findings confirmed that, drought, rain shortage, climate change, poor soil fertility, and lack of irrigation system for productions that affect food security. Therefore, policy makers and local agricultural authority recommended to build resilient, advanced, and context based agriculture system to overcome aforementioned factors in pastoralist community.

1. Introduction

Food security occurs when “all people”, “at all times”, “have physical” and “economic access to adequate, nutritious and safe food that meets their dietary requirements and food choice for healthy and active life ^{1, 2}. In 2019 global food insecurity report, the burden of food insecurity is much higher in Africa than in any other part of the world that affects more than half of the population ³. It is one of the global society’s concerns in sub-Saharan Africa ². In 2015, UN assembles committee endorsed 2030 agenda, that contains 17 sustainable development goals (SDG) and 169 targets, aimed to address the global challenges of food insecurity, hunger and malnutrition, by ensuring access to safe, sufficient food and nutritious diet for all ⁴.

Research evidences have shown that, food insecurity is aggravated by a lack of adequate food availability, rapid population growth and climate change, which are negatively affecting the progress of agricultural intervention towards hunger reduction; Also have a negatively affecting all dimensions of food security (food availability, access, utilization and stability consequence for food security ^{5, 6, 7}.

Moreover, the COVID-19 pandemic caused a serious global health crisis that brings extraordinary humanitarian challenges ^{8, 9}, the pandemic extremely affects economic, social and health of the community ¹⁰. This created a global problem on physical and economic barriers to food availability ¹¹. Furthermore, COVID-19 has unsettled food access and impacted food insecurity ¹². It worsens the household food insecurity in the lockdown situations ¹³.

Ethiopia has encountered food insecurity over long periods of time ¹⁴. A study conducted in Ethiopia demonstrated that dry seasons, unpredictable rainfall, population pressures, traditional agriculture, unexpected illness, catastrophic events, land deprivation, and a low degree of innovation are central to food insecurity ¹⁴. Similar study from local context revealed that a deficiency of farm land, absence of bulls or cattle, dry seasons, population pressure, poor soil quality, poor cultivating practices, plant and animal infections, lack of support, high work wastage, poor infrastructure and pre- and post-crop misfortunes were associated with food insecurity in Ethiopia ¹⁵.

Even though significant improvement has been made over the past few years in decreasing degrees of life-threatening poverty, addressing food insecurity remains a critical concern for low and middle-income countries, particularly Ethiopia. The current study aimed to assess the contributing factors and coping strategies of food insecurity in South omo Zone, Ethiopia.

2. Material and Methods

Study area: This study was conducted in the South Omo Zone, one of 15 zones in the Southern Nations, Nationalities and People’s Region (SNNPR) of Ethiopia. The zone is divided into ten districts and 1 city administration and the Zone consists of 205 rural and 60 urban “kebeles” (smallest admiration structure). The zone capital is Jinka, a city in the Southern part of the SNNPR; 480 km from the regional capital of SNNPR, Hawassa; and 850 km from Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia ¹⁶.

According to South Omo Zone health department report there are two hundred and sixty eight “kebele” (268) in the Zone of which twenty two (22) are urban kebeles ¹⁶. The South Omo Zone has a diverse agro-ecology ranging from hot arid to tropical humid. Dega (high land) constitutes 0.5 per cent of the Zone, weynadega (midland) 5.1 per cent, semi-kola (mid low land) 60 per cent, and kola (low land) 34.4% ¹⁷.

The rainfall varies significantly in the Zone with a lower rainfall towards the North East of the Zone. The mean annual rainfall of the Zone ranges between 400mm and 1,600mm ¹⁷. Furthermore, agriculture is the predominant economic activity in the zone and the country and is the prominent source of livelihood. Agriculture is mainly subsistence farming for personal consumption ¹⁷. (shown Figure 1).

In this study, health center directors, district health office managers, hospital chief executive officers (CEO), and zonal program experts from health departments and agricultural office were included for the interview; furthermore, pregnant women were also included for focus group discussions (FGD).

The sampling method in qualitative research approach is to select cases that will most advantage the study ¹⁸. Creswell and Creswell reveal qualitative sampling as intentionally selecting study subjects that will help the investigator best in understanding the issue and the investigation enquiry ¹⁹. The participants were purposively selected through maximum variation sampling method. Maximum variation sampling involves purposefully picking a wide range of difference on scopes of interest to obtain evidence about the significance of various circumstances, thus researcher consider various district, health facility with different professional and level of experience on health care program management and food insecurity. Moreover, pregnant women who have food insecurity experience for the last one year eligible for FGD. Total of 18 various level of health care managers included such as, health center directors, district health care managers, hospital chief executive officers (CEO), and zonal level experts for in-depth interview and also consider pregnant women for FGD (Figure 2).

There are no particular guidelines or criteria for calculating sample size in qualitative research. Sample size is based on informational needs as demonstrated earlier on. Participants are sampled until the data are saturated and no new information is revealed ¹⁸. A total of 18 health care managers (district managers, health center directors, hospital executive chief officers and zonal experts) took parts in-depth interviews and also 53 pregnant women participated in 5 focus group discussions - an average of 9-12 participants per group. The in-depth interview and the focus group discussions raised different opinions and made suggestion on food security.

Two qualitative research approach namely in-depth interviews and focus group discussions (FGD) were used to collect qualitative data for this study. Qualitative data were collected using focus group discussion (FGD) guide and open-ended questionnaires. In-depth interviews were conducted using interview guides and focus groups discussions were conducted with focus group interview guides.

All focus group discussions were conducted in the local language. Furthermore, the researcher conducted in-depth interviews with health program managers in Amharic, the official working language of South Omo Zone as well as, Ethiopia. Focus group discussions and in-depth interviews were recorded, and field notes were taken on the discussions. The recorded interviews were transcribed verbatim at the end of each day of research.

Qualitative data analysis includes organizing, thermalizing and coding the data, and framing the interpreting the data ^{20, 21}. In this study, the researcher and research assistant reviewed the data to identify underlying concepts and clusters of concepts. Data analysis is a reductionist process whereby information is reduced through a coding process into identifiable units of meaning ^{18, 19}.

In this study, data analysis started at field with data collection, field notes were taken, voice recorded with permission and debriefing were considered. The voice records were transcribed verbatim in the local language, and then translated in to English. For coding purpose researcher read transcribed interview line by line for several times and then the main codes were extracted. Then, the related codes were put in one category and each code was matched with what the participants had said. Finally, based on similarity and content, the subcategories were used to make the main themes. Also Atlas ti7 software was used to manage the transcript and analyses the data. The researchers ensured data quality by considering the trustworthiness criteria such as confirmability, transferability, dependability and credibility ^{22, 23}.

3. Results

Qualitative data were collected from a purposefully selected sample of health workers through in-depth interviews, using in-depth interview guide. Qualitative data were collected until saturation. A total of eighteen (18) health programme managers voluntarily participated in the interviews.

The majority of the participants, 83.3 % (n=15) were male participants and 17% (n=3) were female participants. The mean (±SD) of the participants s’ age was 31.1±6.1, and the median age was 31 years with the youngest person being 23 years old and the oldest 42 years of age. More than one third of the participants, 38% (n=7) had 4-8 years of work experience; 33.3% (n=6) of the participants had more than 8 years of work experience; and 22% (n=4) of the participants had 2-4 years of work experience. The remaining 5.6 % (n=1) of the research participants had less than one year of work experience. The mean ± (SD) of work experience of the participants were 7.3±3.9, with a minimum of 1 year experience and a maximum of 15 years of experience. A majority, 94% of the participants had at least 2years work experience.

A large proportion, 66.7% (n=12) of the participants had a qualification of a first degree, 27.8 % (n=5) of the participants had a diploma, and only 5.6% (n=1) of the participants had a master’s degree qualification. A large proportion of the participants, 38.9% (n=7) were health center directors, more than one third, 33.3% (n=6) of the interview participants were district health office managers and nearly, 16.7% (n=3) of the members who participated in the key informant interview were zonal level experts in designation, and the rest, 11.1% (n=2) participants were chief executive officer (CEO) from hospital (Table 1).

There were five theme identified in this study such as, burden of food insecurity, Reason for household food insecurity, Prevention strategies, coping mechanism for food insecurity, and Inter-sectorial collaboration to reduce food insecurity at household level with theme and sub theme are articulated in Table 2 below.

Food security is a general health problem in developing nations such as Ethiopia. Evidence suggests that more than 820 million individuals need more to eat ³. The in-depth interview participants experienced food insecurity in their districts.

One participant from an agrarian community remarked:

‘’The area is green most people planted trees, coffee in the land, not crop for day to day consumption, due to this, most farmers family participants go sleep without any foods, even others unable to eat day and night due to lack of nourishment in their house’’ (28 year-old male participant).

More-over, food insecurity was a common concern for pastoralist communities. Participants explained that they were worried about food and did not eat preferred food.

A district health office manager explained this phenomenon in more detail:

“… currently in my district 29,115 peoples are using productive safety net, other 23,000 peoples are regular food aid users from government” (Nurse, 34-year old male participant). This indicates the high number of people that are food insecure and receiving support from the government.

In addition to this, a large proportion of the pastoralist communities were not working the land. Participants from the other pastoralist community explained that “there are many people suffering from food insecurity and the community survives on government food aid’’ (30-year-old male participant).

In contrast to this, the participants from the in the in-depth interview sessions in the high land remarked the following:

“In my cluster most people are agrarian and plant crop based on seasons, due to this, have no much food insecurity and food aid” (34-year-old a male participant).

The current in-depth interview and focused discussion participants mentioned a causes for recent food insecurity in their community as; drought, rain shortage, climate change, the food aid community, and seasonal variations were the repeatedly mentioned as causes for household food insecurity.

In-depth interview participant from the pastoralist district said:

“… I remember the last time a lot of livestock’s were died due to shortage of water ‘drought’’ (23 year-old female participant).

The agrarian participants were explained as food sources attained from purchasing, and land shortages for farming’s were mainly raised causes for food insecurity.

As a 28-year-old male participant mentioned:

’’Previously there were a limited number of people living and working in their land, but recently the number of peoples increasing, as result farming land narrowing, and youth not employed, due to this they lack food to eat’’

Other 32 year old male participant:

“In our district we have no such problem but most of the community members buy cereal and other food item”

Most pastoralist district participants mentioned that, pastoralist community agriculture was traditional farming and subsistence farming. Thus, farmers did not use technology.

A participant from the pastoralist district remarked the following:

’’Previously pastoralists benefited from omo river “sheshe” for farming the land, but now there are different projects like hydroelectric power and sugar project that decrease the water’’ (35-year-old participant). “Sheshe” is an Amharic word referring to water that overflows. The pastoralist community needs a river overflow to cultivate their crops.

One in-depth interview participant noted that the ‘’community created dependency for safety net aid, due to this they do not want to work ‘’ (27-year-old participant). In Ethiopia, government developed productive safety net program (PSNP) strategy to address household chronic food insecurity by offering food or cash for poor people to ensure food needs ^{24, 25}.

Food insecurity is a major threat for development in Africa especially in Ethiopia. Therefore, it requires intensive intervention to address food insecurity. Majority of in-depth interview participants suggested various prevention strategies such as; the pastoralist settlement, encourage self-production and use of modern agriculture as frequently mentioned idea as an important method to tackle food insecurity in pastoralist community.

A 27 year-old female participant explained:

“… In our community all residents are pastoralist, they move from place to place for search of water and grass for their cattle’s, due to this they don’t farm the land, so I suggest pastoralist settlement is critical for self- production….”

Other 36 year old male participant:

“I lived in the pastoralist community for more than 6year, they don’t want to farm their land with modern technology due to this this, governments support for irrigation and agricultural technology transfer must be mandatory’’.

Other participants from the agrarian communities also mentioned strategies to guarantee food security, a productive safety net, and youth work opportunities are repeatedly raised issues to alleviate food insecurity.

‘’……. youth number increasing dramatically in my district due to this they haven’t work opportunity, so local government should facilitate youth work opportunities….’’ (29-year-old male participant).

Furthermore, 34 year male participants mentioned:

‘’In our district most of the families are very poor, They have no cattle or cows due this, they are suffering with food insecurity, Thus, I offer recommendations to give attentions for the community to alleviate food insecurity to each household levels through productive safety net programs and other alternative methods. Suggest government interventions for those who suffer for food insecure households like productive safety net as alternative options”

During in-depth interview sessions, many participants mentioned how the community copes with food insecurity problems. The ways in which they utilized were “selling cows or cattle/goats”, “buying maize powder”, “eating uncommon tree seeds (“negode”)”, “food aid”, “safety nets”, “borrowing food/crop from neighbor kebeles of their ethnic families”, “reducing the number of meals”, “eating very cheap food called “possese””, “going to urban areas to wait at the house of relatives”, “eating leaves that are not acceptable”, “receiving brides” and “going to town for daily jobs for food”.

One participant said:

“When the families are suffer with food insecurity, they sell out their livestock’s to buy maize-based powder during starvation to cope up the hunger” (32year old male participant).

Other participants added the following:

“During hunger time, families go to river to get tree seed of ‘Negode’ to eat, it is not normally edible seed as food.” (35 year old male participant). ”Negoda” in the local language of the communities mean that leaf seed.

From other FGD participant mentioned:

“…..I have seen many families went their ethnic neighbor kebele to borrowed crop/ food to cope starvation…..” (30 year-old female participant). Moreover, one participant remarked:

“…In my district families due to lack of food they eat unacceptable leaf and brides due to hunger to cope the hunger”(32year male participant).

Participants from agrarian communities mentioned contrasted ideas:

“…..In our district, there is no visible food insecurity problem in our district”(36year old male participant).

One participant from the pastoralist district viewed as:

“…. During hunger season, some of families get food aid, from neighbor kebele, whereas others get food aid like safety net from government …” (26 year old female participant).

Moreover, one in-depth interview participant added the following ideas:

“…In my town, many young people move from rural to town to get daily labor work at private house to get food” (32 year old male participant).Similarly, another participant mentioned:

“… Thru hunger time not few, large number of the family member displaced from rural to urban, to stay at relative house” (29 year old female participant).

Inter-sectorial integration to ensure food security is very critical ²⁶. As in-depth interview participants mentioned: inter-sectorial collaboration and coordination were very weak. The majority of the district health managers explained that despite the existence of district steering committees, which are consisting of agricultural, education, finance, health, women affairs and other sectors, these are not functional mean that there is no meeting, no common action plan, no performance plan review in inter-sectorial collaboration and more over they have no guidelines at the district level for food security implementation and program monitoring.

35 year old male in-depth interview participant from pastoralist district mentioned as:

“……There are no planned inter-sectorial collaboration meetings in our districts due to this we have no action for food insecurity prevention, I believe it is very essential for resource mobilization and integration….”

Participant from agro- pastoralist district described the contrasting ideas:

‘’…..In my district, there is a steering committee for collaboration and coordination, I was a member, we have met one times per year only, and also no practical action plans developed’’ (23-year-old male participant).

4. Discussion

Ethiopia is one of the countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, which has experienced food insecurity over long periods of time ¹⁴. In the recent study, key informants and FGD participant’s opinions indicated that, many families worry about access to food, also some households experiencing a total absence of food in the household. This finding is a comparable with the previous study report ³⁶. The possible explanation might be lack of enough foods leads to go day or night and whole day without eating anything.

The present study indicated that conflicts between ethnic groups were common, and this negatively consequence on farming which led to food insecurity. As FAO indicated, conflict is a key driver of conditions of severe food crisis and recently re-emerged famines ^{6, 37}. The possible justification could be prolonged conflict might be decrease access of food, and worse the condition mean time lead to hunger, starvation and food insecurity.

The higher proportion of key informant opinions indicated that, the cause of family food insecurity as, drought, rain shortage, climate change, poor soil fertility, food aid community, food source always by purchasing, pastoralist community, omo river not used for irrigation, population increases, seasonal variation and a lack of guidelines on household food security are responsible for the high burden of food insecurity reported in the study area. This findings were consistent with the previous the study report ^{6, 7, 40, 41}.

A participant from a pastoralist district mentioned:

…….’ I remember last time a lot of livestock died due to drought’’ (23year- old participant). Research evidence from Sidama Ethiopia showed that, having a dry spell, inconsistent and increasingly deficient precipitation and flooding contrarily influence food production. Climate changes influence the nature of creation, and furthermore environmental change impacts on generation and earnings and occupations, wellbeing and food security, and gender equality ²⁷. A Systematic review indicated that, drought influences on food insecurity in Africa ³⁹. Similar study from Nigeria, Oyinloye and his colleagues reported reasons for food insecurity in Africa and other developing nations included: dry spells and other extraordinary climate occasions, Pests, animal’s illnesses and other farming issues like, Climate change, military clashes, and absence of crisis plans, Corruption, political instability, cash crops reliance, and poverty were contributed for food insecurity ²⁸.

Moreover, the cause of food insecurity in agrarian communities was pointed out by participants. A 28-year-old participant mentioned that:

’’Previously there were a limited number of people living and working in their land, but know the size of peoples increasing, as result farming land narrowing, and youth not employed’’.

Many scholars reported on the influence of population increases on agriculture. They showed that this would likely have a large impact on the ability of smallholder farmers to self-sustain and to provide for family consumption. A scientific study report from Ethiopia and other Africa country revealed that, increases in the population were related with declining farm sizes and impact household food security ^{29, 40}. Additionally, Okyere, Mekonnen, and Zerfu revealed that, as smallholding size land affect nourishment capabilities and lead to household food insecurity ³⁰. FAO revealed that, Land is somewhat more evenly distributed in the low- and lower middle-income countries, where more than 95% of all farms are smaller than 5 hectares ³⁸.

On other hand, most pastoralist district pastoralist noted how, pastoralist community agriculture was so traditional and that their subsistence farming did not rely on technology. This study report is similar with the previous research evidence ^{7, 15}.

A Participant from the pastoralist district said:

“Previously pastoralists benefited from omo river sheshe for farming the land but know there are different projects like; hydroelectric power and sugar project that decrease the water” (35year -old participant).

Most of the in-depth interview participants mentioned their own mitigating mechanisms during food insecurity and these included, reducing the number of meals, eating very cheap food and making use of food aid. This evidence was similar with the literature found in India ³¹. Similarly, study conducted in Jimma, Ethiopia by Belachew et al ³² and Afar, Ethiopia by Abdu, Kahssay, and Gebremedhin ³³ haven shown similar scientific proof. Furthermore, the coping mechanisms during food shortage were factors that could be attributed to starvation, and thus contributed to the progression of other health problems. At the time of poor nourishment, the family wanted to minimise the extent of food at meal time and decreasing recurrence of dinners every day and eating less liked or modest nourishment were the regular methods for dealing with stress in the region to avoid premature depletion of saved food sources ³⁴.

In this study, Key informants and focus group discussion (FGD) participants described household coping strategies in food insecurity situations and these included selling livestock and buying maize powder, purchasing grass and firewood, going to visit relatives living in urban areas to get food and also some participants explained sending their youth to town for daily labour, or to work to exploit food potential opportunities. This finding was comparable with the past empirical evidence from Oromia, Ethiopia ³⁵ and Afar, Ethiopia ³³.

Food insecurity is a major threat for development in Africa especially in Ethiopia; hence this needs intensive interventions to tackle food insecurity. From the in-depth interviews and FDG participants suggested different mitigating strategies such as, encouraging pastoralists’ communities to be self-production, pastoralist settlement, support water irrigation systems for pastoralist farming and youth work opportunities.

In Ethiopia, the government has developed food security strategies. Despite the different efforts made by the government’s administrative (GOV) and partners (NGOs) to reduce food insecurity, very little variations were observed in current study. However, significant positive outcomes were expected with respect to Sustainable Development Goal 2 ⁴.

Inter-sectorial integration and coordination is very important to ensure food security and nutrition. Key informant interview participants reported that the current practice of sectorial collaboration and coordination was very weak. The majority of the district health managers indicated that there was a steering committee in each district composed of agricultural, education, finance, health, women affairs and other sectors, but district collaboration and coordination was largely not functional. However, the Ethiopian Federal ministry of health (EFMOH) promotes the importance of strengthening multi-sectoral nutrition coordination and linkages across all responsible sectors and partners for effective and efficient implementation ²⁶. This study is purely qualitative and data was collected from small study participants so it may not represent general population in southern region.

5. Conclusions

This study revealed that, there is an important reason that affects household food security in study area such as, drought, rain shortage, climate change, poor soil fertility, and lack of irrigation system for productions that affect food security in pastoralist and agrarian community. Due to this, households took the following coping strategies such as selling livestock and buying maize powder, purchasing grass and firewood, going to visit relatives living in urban areas to get food and also sending their youth to town for daily labor, or to work to exploit food potential opportunities. Thus, policy makers and local agricultural authority recommended to build resilient, advanced, and context based agriculture system to overcome aforementioned factors in agro pastoralist community.

List of Abbreviations

EFMOH: Ethiopian Federal ministry of health, FGD: Focus group discussion, RHB: Regional Health Bureau, SDG: Sustainable Development Goals, SNNPR: South Nation Nationality People Region, WoHo: Woreda Health Office, ZHD: Zonal Health Department.

Ethics Approval and Consent to Participate

Ethical approval was secured from the Ethics and Higher Degrees Committee of University of south Africa (UNISA). A permission letter was secured from the Regional Health Bureau and the South Omo zone health department, respectively. The purpose and objectives of the study, the risks, and benefits of the study explained for the study participants. Furthermore, researchers ensured informed consent. The individuals who were not interested to participate were given the right to do so. Confidentiality of the data was ensured throughout the study.

Competing Interests

The authors declared, have no competing interests.

Funding Source

Field data collection process and supervisory expenses covered by South omo zone health department.

Authors’ Contributions

TAG: Conceptualizing, methods, literature reviewed, participated in data collection at field, conducted data analysis and interpretation, draft result writing. ZZN: Methodology, Supervising, validation of the research, resources, reviewing, editing and writing the manuscript. Both authors have read and approved the manuscript.

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank South omo zone health department for financial support during data collections. We would like to extend our appreciation to Mr Yohanse Negash and Mr Breket who assisted to qualitative data gathering in the fields. We would like to forward special thanks to in-depth interview and FGD participants. Lastly, we would like to appreciate RHB, ZHD and WoHo for permission to conduct the study in their districts.

References