Suchergebnisse

This research was undertaken in the pastoral areas of southern Ethiopia with the objective of assessing determinants of cattle commercial off-take along with the cultural values. The required data was generated from both primary and secondary sources. The primary data was generated through a formal survey using pretested questionnaire from 160 randomly selected pastoralists and through group and key informant discussion with cattle traders. In order to identify factors determining the pastoralists' behaviour towards participation in cattle markets and the net commercial position (selling, autarky, and buying) of households, multinomial logit model was used. Age of the household head, education level, income from livestock products, off-take for social purposes, the number of regular clients and having access to market information have a significant effect on the likelihood of choosing the selling position. Cattle market price, and mode of payment/credit have significant effect on the probability of choosing the buying position while off-take for social purposes and number of regular clients have significant effect on probability of choosing the autarky position. Therefore policies that would improve the net commercial off-take by establishing markets and production and/or marketing facilities, and creating awareness regarding some traditional practices such as raiding and sacrificing would alleviate the problem.

This paper documents the determinants of household-level food security based on the data collected in 2003 from 954 randomly-selected households in major drought-prone areas of Ethiopia; namely from the West and East Haraghe zones of Oromiya and South Gonder zone of Amhara. The food security is assessed using the calorie intake, anthropometrical measures and based on household-declared perceptions about the food security situation. The Probit model for factors affecting the food security level and the Tobit model for factors affecting the incidence of food security were employed. Factors that significantly affected the food security level are agro-ecology, family size, number of crops grown, number of plots owned, access to drinking water, the wealth status of the household and the number of community-based organizations (CBOs) in the village. The incidence of food security was significantly affected by agro-ecology, number and types of crops grown, access to climatic information, proportion of household members with formal education, number of CBOs in the village and the adoption of soil conservation measures. The results confirm the important role of some of the development interventions of both government and non- governmental organizations (NGOs) to promote food security through formal education, soil and water conservation measures and production diversification. In addition, important factors that need to be considered are access to climatic information and strengthening the role of CBOs.

The objective of this study was to examine extent and determinants of income poverty in selected rural villages located in different parts of the country. Data were collected through a detailed structured household survey, and descriptive statistics and econometric modelling were employed to analyze the data. Results confirm that there was abject rural poverty in the study areas; annual average per capita income was estimated at Birr 1092.30 (1.0 USD ~9.6 Birr). Some 66 per cent of the sample households (n = 240) were found to be below a poverty line, defined in official documents and adjusted for inflation in this study. The analysis of determinants of household poverty showed family size, land and livestock holdings, diversification in crop production, engagement in non-farm activities and utilization of microfinance services to be important correlates. Increased livelihood asset holdings, in terms of land and livestock, crop diversification, and engagement in non-farm activities were positively related to improved household welfare. Differences in community level natural resource endowments in terms of quality of land resources and microclimatic conditions appeared to have significant influence on the probability of households to be non-poor, through its impacts on crop productivity, as annual incomes were higher in villages where crop production constituted the primary source of household income. These results underline the importance of enhancing the poor's livelihood asset endowments, agricultural intensification, livelihood diversification and pursuing of geographically differentiated strategies in poverty reduction efforts. The need for promoting family planning was also shown by the inverse relationship between household sizes and poverty status of households.

The full-length genomes of two isolates of Rice yellow mottle virus from Ethiopia were sequenced. A comparison with 28 sequences from East Africa showed that they clustered within a new strain named S4et, related to the S4mg and S4ug strains found in the Lake Victoria Basin and Madagascar, respectively.