Prevalence and factors affecting food insecurity among small- holder farmers in South-Western Nigeria

Abstract

Rural people in Nigeria have become more vulnerable to malnutrition, erratic supply of food items, unaffordable food costs, low quality foods and sometimes complete lack of food in spite of abundant agricultural resources. This paper sought to examine food insecurity among smallholder food crop farmers by identifying its prevalence and the causative factors and coping strategies in South-western Nigeria. A multi-stage random sampling approach was used in selecting the smallholder farming households’ sample. The study adopted descriptive analysis such as frequency distribution and percentage analysis to describe the socio-economic characteristics of the respondents. Logit Regression Model was used to determine the effect of socio-economic factors on household food insecurity while FGT index was used to estimate the food insecurity status of the respondents. The paper concluded that majority (75%) of the smallholder food crop farming households were earning their living primarily through farming. Also, households who permanently owned the land tend to be more food secure than those without land while a unit increase in respondents’ income, will lead to reduction in the relative chance of the household being food insecure by 2.04%. The study therefore recommended among other things that the Government should increase budgetary allocation to farming system to reflect the significant importance that food security have for the well-being of the rural farming households.