FOOD SECURITY POLICY: DOES IT WORK? DOES IT HELP? Tagel Gebrehiwot Gidey Examining committee: Prof. dr. V.G. Jetten University of Twente Prof. ir. E. van Beek University of Twente Prof. dr. B.W. Lensink University of Groningen Prof. dr. P.Y. Georgiadou University of Twente Prof. dr. E.M.A. Smaling University of Twente ITC dissertation number 219 ITC, P.O. Box 6, 7500 AA Enschede, The Netherlands ISBN 978-90-6164-345-6 Cover designed by Job Duim Printed by ITC Printing Department Copyright © 2012 by T.G. Gidey FOOD SECURITY POLICY: DOES IT WORK? DOES IT HELP? DISSERTATION to obtain the degree of doctor at the University of Twente, on the authority of the rector magnificus, prof.dr. H. Brinksma, on account of the decision of the graduation committee, to be publicly defended on Friday, December 14, 2012 at 14.45 hrs by Tagel Gebrehiwot Gidey born on April 29, 1974 in Mekelle, Ethiopia This thesis is approved by Prof.dr. Anne van der Veen, promoter Acknowledgements I owe much gratitude to many people for their help and friendship during my study in the Netherlands. It is difficult to list all of them in these pages, because the journey has been long. But I would like to take this opportunity to express my most heartfelt acknowledgements to all who contributed to bring this work to realization. First and foremost, I am eternally thankful to the Almighty of God for His unparalleled grace and guidance in giving me the courage and strength to close this chapter of my life. Coming to my PhD, I am greatly indebted to my promoter and supervisor Prof. Dr. Anne van der Veen for his immense support, stimulating suggestions, encouragement, and apt guidance provided an endless enthusiasm throughout the years of my study. Without his support, this study would not have come to completion. No words can fully articulate his role in the materialisation of this effort. The breadth of skills and lessons that I have learnt from you will be amplified over my career. I am greatly indebted to you. I would also like to extend my sincere thanks to Dr. Ben Maathuis, who was always ready to help me with my problems on remote sensing analysis. I would like to express my deepest gratitude to the Faculty of Geo- Information Science and Earth Observation (ITC) of the University of Twente research fund, for financing my scholarship; the Tigray State Council Office; Mekelle University particularly Prof. Dr. Mituku Haile and Dr. Kindeya Gebrehiwot for providing me the support to set the initial set of my PhD studies. I would like to extend my special thanks to Dr. Paul van Dijk for his compassion and support. My wholehearted appreciation to Loes Colenbrander, Petra Weber, Theresa van den Boogaard, Marie Chantal Metz, Bettine Geerdink, the entire IT (helpdesk), library, travel unit and finance department staff members for handling and facilitating countless issues, which as a whole made my stay at ITC pleasant. I am deeply grateful to the comfort and care that provided me. Without the kind cooperation of the respondents in Tigray, this study wouldn’t have been possible. In this regard, I would like to thank the farm households for their hospitality and willingness to take substantial time off work to complete the long survey questionnaire. Many thanks to the officials of the Administration and the Rural Development Offices of the Enderta, Kilte Awelaelo and the Hintalo Wajirat woredas in Tigray; and the field assistants who participated in the survey I conducted for this work, for their excellent cooperation. I wholeheartedly thank all of them. I would like to thank all my friends, colleagues, the Habesha and entire PhD community for their cordiality that made my study life in Enschede memorable and enjoyable. Atkilt, Rishan, Sam, Dawit, Peter, Francis, Berhanu, Vincent, Jane, Mohammed, Alphonse, Armindo, Anas, Melaku, Anandita, Debanjan, Rafael, Zahir Ali, Dr. Monica, Dr. Abel, and Dr. Fekerte deserve very special thanks. Thank you for the moments that I cherish and do remember mostly with a smile. The support of relatives, friends, and colleagues back home is also gratefully acknowledged. Hayalu Mirutse, Seyoum Mengesha, Helen Getahun, Shewaye Tikue, Dr. Wolderufaiel, Neguse, Woldu Gebregiabhere and Kale deserve very special thanks for giving me their never fading love and encouragements throughout my studies. Finally, my loving thanks to my family for their love, firm support, understanding and encouragement. My heartfelt thanks and unreserved love goes to my wife Sara Abebe, and my kids Delina and Beruk. Sara (Dambuchey) has always been of great moral support and happily took the burden of family responsibility so that I could concentrate on my study. Her love and support has been a source of inspiration in my work. I am highly indebted to my mother, Letay Gebregiworgis. She has very special place in my life and character. She raised us by her own in an environment she had no experience after the loss of my father at my age of six. I have no words to express my gratitude for all her generosity and selfless support without which pursuing my dreams would have been impossible. My deepest love, respect and gratitude goes to my beloved sister Ealzabeth Gebrehiwot (Ealsiway mearey), her husband Yohaness (Joneye), my beloved sister Hamelmal Gebrehiwot (Hamme), Naod (Babi) and my brothers Micky and Dejen for their love and support. My beloved sister, Ealsi, has always been my inspiration. I learned from her to stay strong in life’s many challenges. To all my family, my gratitude is endless. ii Erratum: On page 47, line number 9 the following paragraph should be included before … In addition Abebaw et al. (2010) studied the impact of food security program on household food consumption in two villages of the Amhara region in the North-western part of Ethiopia using propensity-score matching. However, Abebaw et al. (2010) only provided the average impact of the food security program but did not attempt to analyse the sensitivity of their estimated impact to selection bias. In practice, there may be unobserved variables that simultaneously affect the outcome, and the assignment into program beneficiary. In such circumstances, a ‘hidden bias’ may influence the robustness of the matching estimators (Rosenbaum, 2002). As Ichino et al. (2006) have suggested, the presentation of matching estimates should therefore be accompanied by sensitivity analysis since propensity-score matching cannot fully account for selection bias. This apparent limitation of Abebaw et al. (2010) provides us with the starting point of this article. Reference Abebaw, D., Yibeltal Fentie, Kassa, B. (2010). The impact of a food security program on household food consumption in Northwestern Ethiopia: A matching estimator approach. Food Policy 35, 286-293. Table of Contents Acknowledgements ................................................................................ i List of figures ....................................................................................... v List of tables........................................................................................ vii Chapter 1 General Introduction .............................................................. 1 1.1 Background ............................................................................ 2 1.2 Objective and research questions .............................................. 6 1.3 The Study area ....................................................................... 8 1.3.1 Tigray Regional State ........................................................ 8 1.3.2 The Study tabias ............................................................ 10 1.4 Thesis organization ................................................................ 13 Chapter 2 Coping with Food Insecurity on a Micro Scale .......................... 15 2.1 Introduction .......................................................................... 17 2.1.1 Defining Food Security .................................................... 19 2.1.2 Food insecurity and its underlying causes .......................... 21 2.2 Methodology ......................................................................... 23 2.2.1 Construction of the food poverty line: Cost of Basic Needs Approach ....................................................................... 23 2.2.3 Data ............................................................................. 28 2.3 Results and discussion ........................................................... 32 2.3.1 Descriptive: Productive resources ..................................... 32 2.3.2 Empirical results ............................................................. 34 2.3.3 Household coping strategies ............................................. 37 2.4 Conclusions .......................................................................... 41 Chapter 3 Impacts of Program Interventions upon Food Security and Environmental Rehabilitation ................................................................ 43 3.1 Introduction .......................................................................... 45 3.1.1 Policy evaluation ............................................................. 47 3.1.2 Government policy instruments for food security ................ 49 3.1.3 Government policies in Ethiopia ........................................ 50 3.1.3.1 Intervention to enhance food availability (Macro level) ........ 51 3.1.3.2 Interventions at household level (Micro level) ..................... 52 3.1.3.3 Interventions to rehabilitate degraded lands .....................