Livelihood Strategies and Food security of Rural Households

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT First and foremost I would like to thank and honor the almighty God for providing me the opportunity, courage and competence to realize my aspiration. My greatest thank and heartfelt appreciation goes to my major advisor Dr. Gezahegn Ayele and my co-advisors Dr. Tesfaye Lemma and Dr. Dawit Alemu for their valuable guidance, suggestions, encouragement, the time they sacrificed and over all unreserved assistance. Successful and timely accomplishment of this study would have been very difficult without their generous devotion from the early design of the research proposal to the final write-up of the dissertation. Thus, I am very much indebted to them for their willingness to advice me and all their supports that enabled me to finalize the study. I convey my deepest thanks to Wolaita Sodo University for giving me the chance to pursue my PhD study and covering study expenses. Moreover, I would like to express my thanks to Minster of Education for covering my research expenses. I would also like to express my gratitude and appreciate to woreda and zonal level agriculture and rural development office heads and experts for providing me with valuable data and information.