Food insecurity is a state or a condition in which people experience limited or uncertain physical and economic access to safe, sufficient and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs or food preferences for a productive, healthy and active life [1–4]. Food security can be considered at national, household and individual levels. At national level, it is related to physical existence of food stocks for consumption be it from own production or from markets [5]. It is related to the availability dimension of food security and is a function of the combinations of domestic food stocks, commercial food imports, food aid and domestic food production including determinants of each of these factors [5]. On the other hand household food security is related to the ability to obtain sufficient food with sufficient quality to meet nutritional requirements of all household members. Household level food security mainly relies on economic freedom and purchasing power of household members which again related to income distribution in the household [5, 6].
Although non-availability of food, lack of access, improper utilization and instability over a certain period time are the four main pillars that lead to a situation of food insecurity, it exists in various ways in different parts of the world [7]. Limited resource and increased food price problems affecting many households of the world including Ethiopia, are the common factors that affect food insecurity [8, 9]. In addition to the basic causes of food insecurity, literature showed that the educational status of the household, multiple income sources, number of children, sole parenthood, marital status and employment status of the households are perceived to be determinants of food insecurity both in developed and developing countries [9–11].
Moreover, traditional farming practice, unstable weather conditions, recurrent drought, pests and disease, population pressure or growth, weak institutional capacity, inadequate infrastructure and social services are the other major reasons that determine food security in Ethiopia [12].
Food insecurity remains highly prevalent in developing countries and over the past two decades, it has increasingly been recognised as a serious public health problem in the developed world [11]. According to the latest estimates of the State of Food Insecurity in the World (2015 report), Sub-Saharan Africa made some progress towards halving the proportion of its population suffering from hunger. The overall prevalence of hunger in the region declined by 30 % between 1990-92 and 2015 [13]. This progress has been made with significant differences between the four sub-regions of Sub-Saharan Africa, with 60 % reduction in Western Africa and with no progress in the Middle Africa. Since 1990-92, other sub-regions experienced an increase in the absolute number of undernourished people, approximately 20 % and 2 % respectively in Eastern and Southern Africa [5, 13]. Thus, the FAO estimated that about 805 million people are chronically undernourished in 2012-14, down more than 100 million over the last decade and 209 million lower than in 1990-92. In the same period, the prevalence of undernourishment has fallen from 18.7–11.3 % globally and from 23.4–13,5 % for developing countries [5, 14].
Drought and famine have become an everyday reality in Ethiopia. The country has faced three major famines and other similar situations in the past three decades [5]. The recurrence of famine in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s has significantly affected the country’s food production [5, 13]. However, during the past 20 years, the deficit in calorie intake in Ethiopia has been significantly reduced from 623 to 314 Kcal/cap/day accompanied by a 33 % decline in poverty rate from 1999 to 2010 [13, 15]. Although these results are recorded as good progress in poverty reduction in Ethiopia, food insecurity is still a threat to the households of the country [15].
Studies conducted at small scale level in different parts of Ethiopia showed that almost 50 % of the study populations were food insecure. According to the cross-sectional study done in Farta district (Ethiopia) in 2012, from the total study participants about 70.70 % were food insecure [16]. Similarly, a study done in Addis Ababa city showed 58.16 % of the total households were below the food security cutoff point that classified food secure and insecure households and expressed this in terms of caloric requirements [12, 17]. Another study result from Sidama, Southern Ethiopia, showed 54.10 % of the households were food insecure [18]. A longitudinal study done in Ethiopia on adolescents’ food security status has shown that different or fluctuating levels of food insecurity were registered in different rounds of the study period. Overall, 20.50 % of adolescents were food insecure in the first round survey, while the proportion of adolescents with food insecurity increased to 48.40 % one year later. During the one year follow up period, more than half (54.80 %) of the youth encountered transient food insecurity [8].
Food insecurity has been linked in the literature to a variety of health outcomes such as: undernutrition, iron deficiency anemia, multiple chronic conditions, obesity and poor self-rated physical and mental health [9, 19]. It is also perceived that food insecurity results in social deprivation within household members which further causes different health disorders [20, 21].
In general, Ethiopia has made substantial progress in poverty reduction in the last two decades. However, food insecurity is a threat to households as result of events such as population growth, food prices and recurrent drought. In 2004, the government of Ethiopia initiated a food security strategy built around: increasing the availability of food through domestic production, ensuring access to food for food deficient households, and strengthening institutional emergency response capability [22]. This is the Productive Safety Net Program, which has been conducted in Ethiopia in different phases- phase I (2005-2006), phase II (2007-2009) and phase III (2010-2014)- since its inception in 2005 and is expected to result in improvement of household living and reduced food insecurity levels [13, 23]. The scientific community needs to establish reliable monitoring and evaluating systems to determine whether there is improvement in household food security level as an indicator of poverty. Therefore, the present study determined the levels and associated predictors of food insecurity in the east and west Gojjam zones of Amhara Region, Ethiopia. Policy makers and development agencies working on food security intervention can use the evidence generated from the current study as a baseline for their monitoring and evaluation activities.