Drivers of rural households’ food insecurity in Ethiopia: a comprehensive approach of calorie intake and food consumption score

Most food insecurity studies in developing countries, including Ethiopia, use a single food security indicator to determine the food insecurity status, thus overlooking the multidimensional nature of food security. Using cross-sectional data collected from 408 households in three districts of East Hararghe Zone, Ethiopia, this study combined two food security indicators namely calorie intake and Food Consumption Score (FCS) so as to gain more insights on the multidimensional nature of food security and to categorise households into different food insecurity groups. The study further sought to identify factors influencing the households’ food insecurity status. The research findings based respectively on the per capita calorie intake and the FCS indicate that 36.03 and 49.02 percent of the sampled households were food insecure. However, the findings reveal that when the two indicators were combined, 22.06 and 40.93 percent of the households were completely food insecure and transitory food insecure respectively. These findings also suggest that the 40.93 percent (26.96 and 13.97 percent) of households categorised as food secure based on single indicators (i.e., per capita calorie intake and FCS respectively) was unrealistic. Furthermore, findings from the bivariate probit model indicate that food insecurity incidences decreased with the adoption of soil and water conservation, access to irrigation, livestock, access to fertilisers, and household income. It increased with the age of the household head, the household size, and the coping strategy index. Therefore, policies and strategies combating food insecurity should consider a combination of food security indicators.