Income diversification in enhancing food security among rural households in Nigeria
Food security is now fundamental to the development policies of Nigeria. The country is faced with a challenge of feeding its ever-increasing population. Even though, Nigeria is a rich country with abundant natural and human resources, overwhelmingly large segment of its citizens are food inse...
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| Format: | Thesis |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
2015
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/67738/1/FP%202015%2080%20IR.pdf |
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| Summary: | Food security is now fundamental to the development policies of Nigeria. The country
is faced with a challenge of feeding its ever-increasing population. Even though,
Nigeria is a rich country with abundant natural and human resources, overwhelmingly
large segment of its citizens are food insecure in both urban and rural communities.
Studies have shown that most of the socioeconomic indicators for the country are very
low. The food insecurity indices in Nigeria keep increasing with passage of time, for
example, only 18 percent Nigeria population were food insecure in 1986, but the figure
rose to 40 percent in 2005 and over 70 percent in 2013. This could be due to fact that,
rural areas where most of the agricultural productions take place suffered many years of
neglect; rural households were deprived of basic social infrastructure such as
electricity, portable drinking water, heath care and educational facilities. Many rural
communities are still not connected urban centres. Discovery of oil in Nigeria also led
to the neglect of agricultural sector, hence recent increase in imports bills. Successive
governments in Nigeria have failed to diversify the country’s economy away from oil
sector. Due to the failure of the agricultural sector to occupy its rightful place in the
Nigerian economy and its increase inability to provide the needed livelihoods to the
rural households, the smallholder farmers adopt to diversify their portfolios away from
agriculture. The diversification is seen as not only key to consumption smoothing but
as a strategy to deal with different shocks.
A nationally representative sample of 3372 rural households from General Household
Survey-panel data that adopt the World Bank Living Standard Measurement Survey
(LSMS) technique was used for this study. Based on 2120 kcal Food and Agricultural
Organization (FAO) recommended per adult equivalent and 0.87 USD purchasing
power parity (PPP), an annual food poverty threshold of (N50, 331.67) equivalent to
317.55 USD per annum was derived for Nigeria. This threshold is the cost for
purchasing recommended daily food allowances (RDA) of an adult equivalent for
healthy life in rural Nigeria.
Chi-square analysis and t-test revealed that diversified households were relatively more
food secure than undiversified at 0.05 per cent level of significance. The food security
situation in Nigeria was examined using the Foster Greer and Thorbecke (FGT) class of decomposable food poverty measures that satisfy both monotonicity and transfer
axioms. The coefficient of ∝, 0, 1 & 2 measures the incidence, depth and severity of
food insecurity. The food insecurity indices at national level as measured by ∝ (∝=0,
∝=1 and ∝=2 measure the incidence, depth and severity of food insecurity
respectively) shows that (∝=0, 46.36, ∝=1, 0.43 and ∝=2, 1.11 for and ∝=0, 42.78,
∝=1, 0.348 and ∝=2, 7.45) for post-harvest seasons respectively. This implies that
almost half of the rural households in Nigeria are food insecure subsisting on less the
RDAs, however, depth and severity of food insecurity also differ. The results of
econometric analysis using logistic regression model revealed that the age of the
household head, education up to tertiary level, household size, the value of the
household’s livestock holdings, participation in non-farm enterprise, access to formal
credit, distance to the urban centres and total remittances received by a household had
statistically significant influence on food security. We conjecture that, the higher
incidence of food insecurity during post harvesting season might likely be due to
inability of smallholder farmers to utilize their time into non-farm income generating
activities due to high demand for labour for farm operations.
The results PSM suggested that on the average food consumption expenditure of the
non-diversified households were less than that of participating households, and
therefore more likely to be less food secure. Overall, the average increase in food
expenditure due to diversification into non-farm income generating activities ranges
between N1571.52 (10 USD) to N11654.07 (73.53 USD). The study recommends
public policy initiatives that ensure credit availability, access to road, portable water,
extension services and skill acquisition in rural areas as vital for ensuring food security
and as well as encourage participation into non-farm sector. Further studies for panel
data analysis was recommended using subsequent GHS. Subsequent panel waves could
be adopted to look at the dynamics of food security over time. The study concludes
that, variation in food exist between post-plant and post-harvesting seasons in Nigeria,
diversification into non-farm activities has a positive impact on food security and food
consumption expenditure in rural Nigeria. |
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