Vol. 2, Issue 6, Part N (2016)

Abstract
Availability of accurate information on how and to what extent households are affected by HIV/AIDS is a starting point for designing effective intervention programmes to mitigate the impact of the pandemic. This study was initiated with the aim of investigating the impact of the epidemic on food security of rural farm households’ and was carried out in Raya Kobo Woreda by collecting data from a total of 130 households, of which 65 of them are HIV/AIDS affected. Results of the study show that HIV/AIDS affected human capital of the affected households, which was reflected on household’s composition and dependency ratio of the affected households. The average size of land (0.655 hectare) and livestock (0.384 TLU) owned by HIV/AIDS affected households was significantly lower compared to 0.755 hectare and 2.93 TLU respectively for non-affected households in the study area. Moreover, the finding from this study also tended to indicate that HIV/AIDS significantly depleted the financial resources of the affected households in that they were forced to spend money on medical and funeral expenses. Furthermore, result of a logistic regression analysis shows that HIV/AIDS affected households were found to be less likely than the non-affected households in falling into ‘Better’ dietary diversity score category. Based on the finding of this study, we recommend that any intervention programme aimed at mitigating the impact of HIV/AIDS should focus on strengthening the capacity of the HIV/AIDS affected households in rural areas by improving their access to the limited resources, promoting labor/capital-saving technologies and developing technologies that can make optimal use of limited resources.