An assessment of the causes of malnutrition in Ethiopia: A ...

The food-bias on nutrition in Ethiopia starts from the interpretation of the definition
of food security. This indeed is the crux of the matter in linking the nutrition security strategy
to food security strategy. Nutrition affects the availability of food and food in turn affects
nutrition status of a household in rural farming families. The food side of the nutrition
problem starts at the individual level but extends to household up to national level.
Conceptual framework
The conceptual framework for this study is based on both the nutrition in the lifecycle
framework and the global framework of the determinants of malnutrition framework. These
frameworks provide the understanding that to effectively tackle malnutrition a tri-adequacy of
food, health, and care products is indispensable. At the immediate level, malnutrition results
from interactions between inadequate dietary intake and disease, a vicious cycle that accounts
for much of the high morbidity in countries like Ethiopia. The life-cycle perspective illustrates
the complexity of building a nutrition secure society, as malnutrition can be compounded
through the life cycle and across generations. The global framework demonstrates that
resources must be brought from a number of sectors, levels, and partners to bear on the
problem of malnutrition. Simply the conceptual underpinning is that food security goes
beyond food production and distribution, and nutrition security is not a necessary outcome of
successfully achieving food security, but an issue that must be explicitly addressed in its own
right.
Targeting is an important concept to have an effective nutrition-aimed food security
intervention. Conceptually it is important to distinguish between the food security and
nutrition security target groups in terms of their location specificity. Food security could be
seen in the context of households, community, region, as well as national levels. Nutrition
security requires priority target groups. Nutrition security is more focused on an individual,
household and community levels. Most nutrition programs target infants, young children and
women of childbearing age, while food security programs target households and
communities.
National and regional potentials and food security performance
There is little doubt about the country’s natural resources potential for the production
of food items (crops and livestock) in sufficient quantity and quality. Ethiopia is endowed
with a large array of agro-ecological conditions that allow the production of various types of
crops. Despite such potentials, it is sad to note that agriculture in Ethiopia has been unable
even to produce enough to feed its population. Among the varied factors that account for this
sad state of affairs, low land, animal and human productivity take the leading responsibility. It
has often been said that Ethiopian agriculture, both crop and livestock, is characterized by
low-input and low-output system of production.
Since the country is dependent on agriculture, crop failure usually leads to household
food deficits. Due to crop failure and disasters, millions of people annually rely on food
distributed free or under food for work programme. For the fifteen years before 2002 Ethiopia
annually imported 700,000 metric tons of food aid on average to cope with food insecurity in
the county. Having peaked at about 26.2 percent in 1984/85, food aid imports amount to a
significant proportion of the domestic production of food crops, often 10 percent or more.
Nationally food security has been and continues to be a serious challenge. The major causes
for food insecurity at individual or household levels, is related to high level of poverty
(access) and inadequate national production of food items (supply).
Between 2000 and 2004 on a regional level, per capita production of food crops was
above the national average in three of the four major regions of the country (Tigray, Amhara
and Oromia). The national average for this period was 145.46kg/person while the regional
average was 164, 177 207, and 71 for Tigray, Amhara, Oromia, and SNNPR, respectively
(EEA 2003/04). The regions with the highest food deficits, Afar and Somali, also have the
highest level of child malnutrition. The prevalence of wasted and underweight children in
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