Land acquisition and use remain a critical issue of great policy relevance in developing countries such as Nigeria. This study therefore examined land acquisition and use in Nigeria within the context of food and livelihood security. The chapter used secondary data obtained from the World Bank website, National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) and other sources. It was found that there are gender, location and income-group considerations in the allocation of land in Nigeria. While the urban land market is relatively more formal, the rural land market is informal and the transactions were not documented in most cases. The study found that bureaucratic bottlenecks, high cost of registering land and long registration procedures, and inconsistent policy regimes impede the development of land market in Nigeria. Based on the findings of the study, it was recommended that the government should reduce and make the processes to be completed in registering lands in Nigeria easier. The Land Use Act 1978 should be amended to capture the prevailing realities around customary laws and informal markets. The government should reduce the cost of land registration in Nigeria. Multilateral organisations and government should co-create and co-finance innovative interventions to improve activities in the land market.

The study assessed dynamics of food insecurity among households in rural Nigeria using the Living Standard Measurement Survey-Integrated Survey on Agriculture (LSMSISA) collected in 2010/2011 and 2015/2016. Food insecurity status of the households was constructed using Household Food Insecurity Access Scale and analysed with descriptive statistics and random effect ordered probit model. Overall, 63.10%, 26.24%, 9.53% and 1.13% of households were food secure, mildly food insecure, moderately food insecure andseverely food insecure, respectively in the first panel; while 46.53%, 31.63%, 19.39% and 2.45% were food secure, mildly food insecure, moderately food insecure and severely food insecure, respectively in the second panel. Food insecurity status increased with large household size, dependency ratio, being female-headed and aging household heads. Households in south-eastern Nigeria had a higher food insecurity incidence than elsewhere. Age, age squared, female to male adult ratio, primary and tertiary education, occupation, marital status, household size, access to credit and living in North East, North West, South West, South East and South zones were the correlates of food insecurity in rural Nigeria. Based on the findings, the study recommended an increased awareness on the use of family planning methods and improved access to family planning services. Also, severely food insecure households should be identified and specifically targeted by the government for appropriate safety net interventions.

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The continent of Africa is blessed with natural resources and most especially large expanse of land area suitable for agricultural production. But despite this huge deposit of untapped resources and opportunities in the continent, it is very appalling to know that many of the countries in Africa are homes to the poorest of the poor and vulnerable people across the globe. The continent is faced with multi-faceted problems of insecurity arising from the activities of violent extremists and marginalized sect, decaying infrastructural facilities exacerbated by corruption and prolonged neglect, rising youth unemployment occasioned by bad governance and inadequate planning coupled with dwindling income resulting from poor and inadequate production technologies. However, in spite of the worsening food crisis situation and constraints to agricultural transformation in Africa, agriculture, which is the main source of livelihood for most Africans (especially those residing in the rural areas) remains the economic nerve centre considering its contribution to the African economy in terms of labor employment and share of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Thus, the task of poverty reduction in Africa portends a moving target as the number of poor and undernourished people keeps increasing. This paper therefore examined the link between agriculture and poverty in Africa. The problems and prospects of African agriculture were x-rayed, the poverty situation in Africa and the likely causes were also highlighted. The paper suggests a bottom-up (also called community-driven development) approach to policy formulation through involvement of farmers in policy discussions at both national and international levels starting from project/problem identification to evaluation. There is the need for partnerships between government and private sector in the area of input and infrastructure provision. This is very important considering the fact that government alone can no longer shoulder the responsibility of providing and maintaining infrastructures due to declining revenue. Farm level processing and value addition should be encouraged by government through the provision of enabling environment and farmers should endeavour to join and participate in cooperative activities so as to enhance their access to credit, markets and benefit from collective bargaining power in terms of input acquisition and getting support from government and prospective funders.