CAUSES OF HOUSEHOLD FOOD INSECURITY IN KOREDEGAGA PEASANT ASSOCIATION, OROMIYA ZONE, ETHIOPIA

The main objective of the study was to examine the determinants of households' food security using a logistic regression procedure. The model was initially fitted with eleven factors, of which six were found to be significant, and all exhibited the expected signs. These include farmland size, ox ownership, fertilizer application, education level of household heads, household size, and per capita production. The result was analyzed further to compute partial effects and to conduct simulation studies on significant determinant factors. Analysis of partial effects revealed that an introduction to fertilizer use and an improvement in the educational levels of household heads lead to relatively greater probability of food security. On the other hand, simulations were conducted on the basis of the base category of farmers, representing food secure households, revealed that both educational levels of household heads and fertilizer application by farmers have relatively high potential to more than double the number of food secure households in the study area following improvements in these factors.