The impact of watershed development on food security status of farm households: Evidence from Northwest Ethiopia

Watershed development is part of a poverty reduction and environmental conservation initiative in Ethiopia. The study evaluates the impact of project-supported and community-based watershed development (WSD) interventions on households’ food security status and identifies the factors that affect WSD participants. A propensity score matching (PSM), a household food balance model (HFBM), a geographic information system (GIS), and a Digital Elevation Model (DEM) were employed to analyze data. The PSM model result revealed that participation in a project-supported WSD had a more significant effect on household food security than the community-based WSD. The average treatment effect for the treated (ATT) was 3845.02 Kcal, while the average treatment effect for the control group (ATE) was 3037.85 Kcal, depicting a significant difference between them. Changes in land use and land cover in the study watersheds imply that agricultural and degraded land patterns decreased, whereas grazing land, bushland, wetland, and plantation land patterns have increased in project-supported watersheds over the study period. On one hand, the main socio-economic drivers that positively impacted the food security status of the WSD participation were land size, credit access, livestock ownership, and training. On the other hand, market distance and distance from farmers’ training centers have a significant and negative impact on the status of the households’ food security. The study concludes that project-initiated WSD intervention has a crucial impact on achieving household food security. Priority should be also given to increasing the productivity of land, increasing access to credit services, improving livestock ownership, and providing veterinary services.