An Assessment of Coping Strategies for Drought Induced Food Shortages in Fedis District, East Hararghe Zone, Ethiopia

The central theme of this study was to explore how the farm households cope with drought induced food shortage at Fedis Distrcit. In order to meet this objective, various data collection and analysis techniques were employed. The necessary data were generated from primary and secondary data sources to triangulate or cross check one data collection methods with the other so that its reliability could be maximized. Hence, field observation, household survey, key informant interview and focus group discussions were the principal means of generating primary sources of data while secondary data were obtained from various governmental and nongovernmental organizations documents and reports, books and academic research papers. The collected data were analyzed by using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS). The study findings revealed that the intensity and frequency of drought has been increasing in the last four decades. In line with this, the number of population exposed for food shortage have been increasing and dependency on external food sources become prevalent recently. In response to this, the farm households develop different coping strategies to overcome the problems of food shortage. The identified coping strategies were borrowing, eating wild foods, migration to surrounding urban areas, selling fuel wood and charcoal, pulling children out of school and petty trading. Depending up on their wealth status and sex, the farm households employ one or the combinations of these strategies to smooth food consumption patterns during drought induced harvest failures.