Adoption of Improved Rice Variety and Its Impact on Smallholder Farmers' Food Security in North Western Ethiopia

Food insecurity is the main challenge in Africa, particularly, in Ethiopia. The government of Ethiopia tacked such problems with an agricultural-led Industrialization policy and a strategy of innovation, and dissemination of new agricultural technologies. Rice is among the emphasis of food security crops to improve its genetics, and to be used by smallholder farmers to boost their agricultural productivity and ensure their food security. The research used a simple and systematic sampling technique to take 180 smallholder rice producers to examine the impact of improved rice variety adoption on smallholders' food security in Northwestern Ethiopia. The research used descriptive statistics, the Probit model, and the Propensity Score Matching models. The probit regression identified that Rice farm experience, soil fertility, Access to credit, access to extension service, Mobile phone, and owning more livestock are the factors that positively influence the adoption of improved rice variety and statistical significance at 10%, 5%, 10%, 5%, 1% respectively whereas Distance to cooperatives, distance to main road, and distance to markets are factors that influenced the improved rice variety adoption negatively and statistically significance at 1%, 1%, 1% respectively. The propensity Score Matching Model revealed that the adopters of improved rice variety produced more rice output and consumed more rice output in terms of calorie intake as well as food and non-food consumption. This directly improved the food security status of smallholder Adopters compared to the non-adopters. Therefore, governmental and non-governmental organizations should focus on outreach of improved agricultural technologies to ensure food security at household levels.