Climate change and food security in Ethiopia

Keywords: climate change, food security, Ethiopia, Africa, vulnerability, resilience
Abstract Type: Paper Abstract

Abstract

Food insecurity is a rising problem, with two billion people experiencing a lack of nutritious and affordable food, resulting in malnutrition and poor health. Research in climate change and food systems has generally emphasized crop production and child anthropometric outcomes, with limited focus on the complex linkages between climate variability, household food security, and gender. Climate change also further contributes to inequality through the negative, imbalanced, distribution of harms. In this paper, we will examine the impacts of climate on diet diversity and coping mechanisms by drawing on nationally representative longitudinal data from Ethiopia through the Living Standards Measurement Surveys – Intensive Surveys on Agriculture (LSMS-ISA) and multiple measures of food insecurity to address vulnerability and resilience. To measure climate exposures, high-resolution data on rainfall and heat shocks from CHIRPS and newly available CHIRTSmax from UCSB Climate Hazards Center will be used at a 5km climate grid (0.05º). This project will build on our previous research that has measured climate exposure of educational achievement, nutritional status, and migration. A regression of food security outcomes as a function of climate anomalies, gender, controls, and interactions will be used to directly measure vulnerability and resilience of food security to climate shocks and to measure inequities across households.