Socio-economic Drivers of Food Security among Rural Households in Nigeria: Evidence from Smallholder Maize Farmers

Abstract

Issues relating to food availability, accessibility/affordability, and food utilization remain paramount among different stakeholders such as policymakers and academics. Using data from 250 maize farming households in Nigeria, the study used Foster–Greer–Thorbecke and probit regression model to investigate the factors determining households food security. The food insecurity measure shows that 23.2% points of the households express the incidence of food insecurity while 5.5% points and 1.8% points were found to have depth and severity of food insecurity, respectively. After controlling for households’ socio-economic and demographic characteristics, the probit regression model suggested that, among others, value of output sold, education, credit access and participation in government safety nets program significantly influenced food security among the maize farmers in the study area. Based on our findings, effort should be intensified to enhance the productivity of land through improved production practices. There should be high-level awareness that will increase farmers’ participation in safety net programs. Thus, government at all levels (local, state, and federal) should have adequate budget allocation to this course in order to improve the livelihood outcomes of the farming households.

Assessing Food Insecurity and Its Drivers among Smallholder Farming Households in Rural Oyo State, Nigeria: The HFIAS Approach

“…However, the results of the socioeconomic characteristics in the sampled farming households revealed that the mean household head age was 50.2 years, implying that the cassava farmers in rural Oyo State are in their economically active age. This was similar to the mean age of 49.8 years of crop farmers reported by [16]. About 85 percent of the household heads were male, revealing that cassava production is male dominated.…”

“…These findings indicated that the majority (87.2%) of the farming households in the study area were food insecure. This result was different from [16], who found that 76.8% of maize farming households were FS using a Foster-Greer-Thorbecke (FGT) food security analysis approach. The food insecurity (access) prevalence among farming households was 87.2% at different levels of food insecurity (MiFI, MoFI, and SFI).…”

“…This has a link with insufficient intake of important nutrients and inadequate resources to afford sufficient food both for individual and household needs, which leads to poor nutrition. When an individual is food insecure, it will affect the productive capacity of that person, and by extension, reduce the productivity of the labor force and result in low-quality human capital development of a country [11][12][13][14][15][16].…”

Improving Food Safety Culture in Nigeria: A Review of Practical Issues

“…Perceptions of food safety practices and quality among Nigerian farmers have also been studied [39,40]. The emerging picture suggests that food processing is still at the crude stage due to lack of modern processing machinery and food damage due to poor transport infrastructure [39,41].…”

Food Insecurity and Related Factors among Farming Families in Takhar Region, Afghanistan

“…Access to sufficient food for most farming households differs in different regions due to proneness to shocks of households and other threats [30]. These variations of food security are influenced by demographic factors (age, gender, marital status, family size, and dependency ratio), economic factors (farm input, land size, livestock ownership, credit access, membership, and extension access), farm income, and non-agricultural income flood, farm diseases, and war; these factors affect food insecurity through the agricultural production channels and rural income [32][33][34][35]. The magnitude and direction of the association among these parameters and farming households' food insecurity vary across studies [3,24,[34][35][36][37][38].…”