Food Science and Quality Management www.iiste.org ISSN 2224-6088 (Paper) ISSN 2225-0557 (Online) Vol.97, 2020 5 The Role of Natural Resources for Sustaining Food Security in Ethiopia: A Review Fayera Bakala Mizan Tepi University Milkessa Asfaw Mizan Tepi University Abstract Natural resources can generate and sustain growth, thereby reducing poverty as well as maintain natural environment balance in addition to offering life supporting services for all organisms living on the planet. Well managed natural resources are expected to contribute to income and food security improvement in rural populations. However, food insecurity is the main obstacle to natural resource management in developing countries, especially in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) and it is too challenging to achieve sustainable natural resource management and food security. Deteriorating soils and rapid extraction of natural resources is increasing in developing countries resulting in decreased food security. Thus, food insecurity remains high in most of SSA and natural resource management is marginalized, and gets less attention in development strategies. That insecurity is made even more serious due to degradation linked to escalated scarcity of natural resources. Natural resource management and food security is linked together. Developing countries, including sub-Saharan Africa, suffer from food insecurity. Sustainable use of natural resources means that the communities are enabled to plan and implement improvement measures which essentially (have to) take place at the community level. Such community based natural resource management will, however, only work and spread if it is accompanied and backed up by suitable political reforms at national and regional levels. Keywords: Food security, natural resource, endowment, poverty trap, constraints DOI: 10.7176/FSQM/97-02 Publication date:May 31 st 2020 Introduction Natural resources play a special role in the life of living beings. More than 1.3 billion people depend on fisheries, forests, and agriculture for employment or close to half of all jobs worldwide (FAO, 2004). According to the World Bank, in 2002, more than 90 percent of the 15 million people working on the world’s waters were small-scale fishers, most of them poor, not including the tens of millions of poor who fish inland rivers, lakes, and even rice paddies for protein. About three in four poor people live in rural areas, where they depend on natural resources for their livelihoods, and about 90 percent of them depend on forests for at least some part of their income (USAID, 2006). In Africa, more than seven in ten poor people live in rural regions, with most engaged in resource-dependent activities such as small-scale farming, livestock production, fishing, hunting, artisanal mining, and logging. Poor people rely on related harvests as a primary source of income and fall back on natural resources when other sources of income fail. Africa is endowed with substantial natural resources. It has enjoyed comparatively high rates of growth since the last decade, although in the world it remains the poorest region heavily reliant on natural resources. Natural resources, particularly land, soil, forests, water, animal and plant diversity, vegetation, related ecosystem services and renewable energy sources are crucial to attaining food security, enhancing livelihoods and realizing sustainable development in developing nations including Ethiopia (Sanginga et al., 2010). Africa is endowed with a very rich and diverse natural resource base on which the livelihood of its people, particularly the rural population, depends. However, the continent is still one of the most vulnerable with deepening levels of poverty and worrying trends of natural resources degradation (Campbell 2009). A large number of individual’s encounter challenges in obtaining reliable and sufficient access to food in developing nations. It has been predicted thatabout800 million people are chronically undernourished worldwide and lack enough to eat (OECD, 2000; FAO, 2014). Food insecurity is still one of the most noticeable manifestations of rural poverty and has drawn significant attention (Corbett, 1988; 1991, Abalu, 1999; Birara et al., 2015; FAO, 2014). Many African governments have vocally committed to taking measures aimed at ensuring sufficient food supplies for the populace at all times. Nevertheless, the precarious situation still exists (OECD, 2000). Poverty eradication in Africa is largely dependent on the use of its natural resource base for the advantage of its people. Between poverty and natural resource degradation there is a strong correlation. Depletion and degradation of the natural resource base are taking place in different parts of the continent in order to alleviate poverty. This causes among other things unsustainable natural resource exploitation. It is difficult to achieve sustainable water resources management as a growing number of people still live in water-stressed environments brought to you by CORE View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk provided by International Institute for Science, Technology and Education (IISTE): E-Journals