Rural Poverty and Food Insecurity in Ethiopia*: The Quest for Sustainable Rural Institutions and Technologies

Abstract

This paper addresses the issue of rural poverty and food insecurity in
Ethiopia, with the aim of exploring some policy options for their eradication.
Specifically, it discusses the role of agriculture in alleviating poverty and food insecurity.
The paper also explores the general problem of ‘Environment-Food Security- Rural
Poverty cycle’, with emphasis on the need to develop productive and sustainable
institutions and technologies aimed at eradicating absolute poverty, food insecurity and
natural resource degradation (soil erosion and deforestation). Based on data from the First
Round Ethiopian Household Survey conducted in 1994, it develops and uses an analytical
model (known as Social Accounting Matrix or SAM) to show the nature of linkages
within the agricultural/rural economy. Based on household data from peasant associations
(PAs), the analysis also provides production trends and determinants or constraints of
food crop production for selected provinces or zones. The paper shows the weak nature
of linkages among the sub-sectors of the rural economy, and concludes by drawing some
policy implications from the literature reviewed and the results of the analytical case
model. An important policy implication of the paper is the critical need to develop market
and non-market institutions to increase agricultural productivity and to overcome crop
production constraints and the weak linkages in the rural economy, in order to eradicate
absolute poverty and food insecurity. The paper is part of work in progress that will be
further developed and revised based on more data from Ethiopia