Abstract:
The main objective of this finding was to investigate the impact of nutrition sensitive agriculture
on welfare outcome of rural women in case of south Gonder zone specifically Este and Andabet
Woredas. Food insecurity and malnutrition are priority development challenges of Ethiopia.
To counter the problem, the country embraced the nutrition sensitive agriculture approach
and taken decisive measures relevant for wide implementation of the practice. This study has
assessed the extent to which the desired welfare outcomes are realized in the intervention
beneficiary Este Woreda as compared to the Andabet Woreda that did not benefit from such
intervention. Purposive and simple random sampling procedures were used to select these
two Woredas, and 384 representative households respectively. The study employed key
informants’ interview checklists and structured questionnaires to gather relevant data, which
was then, analyzed using descriptive statistics and propensity score matching (PSM) method.
The study findings demonstrated that the intervention has a significant and positive influence
on assessed welfare outcomes namely women empowerment and household income, Of the
examined women empowerment domains, appreciable improvement was made in leadership
and access to resources. Regarding the outcome on production and consumption diversity,
mothers’ and children’s consumption was seriously constrained by socio- cultural and
religious factors. Despite these challenges, intervention beneficiary women and their children
have had higher minimum dietary diversity than non-beneficiary women and their
children. The home production of nutrient dense food sources positively affected the
consumption of these items although extremely poor families opted to sale part or the entire
farm produce in order to generate the badly needed cash. To countervail this challenge,
future nutrition sensitive agriculture intervention programs should consider livelihood and
income diversification opportunities as part of the scheme so as to allow the poor households
use the home produced nutrient dense foods for intended purpose. In addition, the sustained
and wider dissemination of the nutrition sensitive agriculture approach would require
building the capacity of key actors (government, NGO, donor agents) and institutionalizing
the scheme in the regular publicly supported extension program
The main objective of this finding was to investigate the impact of nutrition sensitive agriculture
on welfare outcome of rural women in case of south Gonder zone specifically Este and Andabet
Woredas. Food insecurity and malnutrition are priority development challenges of Ethiopia.
To counter the problem, the country embraced the nutrition sensitive agriculture approach
and taken decisive measures relevant for wide implementation of the practice. This study has
assessed the extent to which the desired welfare outcomes are realized in the intervention
beneficiary Este Woreda as compared to the Andabet Woreda that did not benefit from such
intervention. Purposive and simple random sampling procedures were used to select these
two Woredas, and 384 representative households respectively. The study employed key
informants’ interview checklists and structured questionnaires to gather relevant data, which
was then, analyzed using descriptive statistics and propensity score matching (PSM) method.
The study findings demonstrated that the intervention has a significant and positive influence
on assessed welfare outcomes namely women empowerment and household income, Of the
examined women empowerment domains, appreciable improvement was made in leadership
and access to resources. Regarding the outcome on production and consumption diversity,
mothers’ and children’s consumption was seriously constrained by socio- cultural and
religious factors. Despite these challenges, intervention beneficiary women and their children
have had higher minimum dietary diversity than non-beneficiary women and their
children. The home production of nutrient dense food sources positively affected the
consumption of these items although extremely poor families opted to sale part or the entire
farm produce in order to generate the badly needed cash. To countervail this challenge,
future nutrition sensitive agriculture intervention programs should consider livelihood and
income diversification opportunities as part of the scheme so as to allow the poor households
use the home produced nutrient dense foods for intended purpose. In addition, the sustained
and wider dissemination of the nutrition sensitive agriculture approach would require
building the capacity of key actors (government, NGO, donor agents) and institutionalizing
the scheme in the regular publicly supported extension program