Analysis of rural household food and non‐food poverty status in Ethiopia: The Case Study from Meskan District

AbstractPoverty is the lack of ability to reach the least possible level of standard of living. Both food and non‐food poverty remain the foremost concern in many developing countries in general and Ethiopia in particular. The proportions of rural households living below poverty line in Ethiopia have been increasing over the past decades. The causes of poverty are enormous and multifaceted. Thus, the objective of this study was to examine the status and determinants of poverty among rural households in Meskan District. Cross‐sectional survey data were collected from 360 rural households randomly. The costs of basic needs approach, Foster, Greer, and Thorbecke methods (FGT index), and logit model were used to determine poverty line and identify determinants of poverty status among rural households, respectively. Moreover, for the analysis of the data, the respective statistical and econometric tests were employed. The findings show that poverty line/absolute poverty status was found about birr 6305 per year per adult equivalent consumption in District. Besides, the annual mean food and non‐food consumption expenditure poverty lines were birr 4157.7 and birr 2147.6 per year, respectively. The incidence, depth, and severity of poverty measures and its status were found to be 0.333, 0.051, and 0.013 values, while compared poverty measures and its status with national poverty incidence status; there was highest poverty incidence among rural households due to low human, physical, financial, and natural capitals as well as weak institutional arrangements. Logit model result similarly shows that factors affecting poverty level among rural households are highly associated with age of households, dependency ratio, marital status of household, education level household, farm size, distance from nearest market, access to food aid, oxen and livestock possession in study District. Our results suggest that the poverty reduction plans and policies should target specific localities and households livelihood situations because poverty by its nature is individual concentrated rather than aggregate national as whole.