Empirical evidence is scanty on the nexus between caregivers’ nutrition knowledge, market accessibility, and preschool children’s dietary diversity in remote communities of Africa’s most populous country, Nigeria. To fill this gap, this study evaluated the effects of caregivers’ nutrition knowledge and access to food market on dietary diversity of preschool children. We used cross-sectional data from four hundred households selected from twenty remote communities in Southeast Nigeria. The study adopted instrumental variable regression to estimate the impacts of nutrition knowledge and food market access on preschool children’s dietary diversity. The findings show that in remote communities, caregivers’ nutrition knowledge and households’ closeness to the market improved preschool children’s dietary diversity. The study demonstrates the potential of improving preschool children’s nutrition outcomes through enhancing access to food market and the nutrition knowledge of the caregivers.

This study examined the relationship between the adoption of bio-fortified provitamin- A cassava varieties and farming households’ health  outcomes using cross sectional data obtained from 318 cassava farmers in southeast Nigeria. The data was analysed using binary logistic regression, propensity score matching of treatment effects and percentages. The study found that number of children under five, household size, education of head of household, extension service, ownership of television, radio, mobile phone and tricycle, membership of cooperative societies, and access to credit were the significant predictors of adoption of pro-vitamin-A bio-fortified cassava varieties in the States. The study also found that the main constraints militating against adoption of pro-vitamin-A bio-fortified cassava include decaying of roots immediately after maturation,high cost of cassava stem, and high moisture content. The estimate of the effect of the adoption of bio-fortified pro-vitamin-A cassava varieties onincidence of vitamin-A deficiency related diseases was significant with an average treatment effect on the adopters of -0.463. The adoption of bio- fortified pro-vitamin-A cassava varieties has substantial effect on the reduction of vitamin-A deficiency related health outcomes. There is need for wider awareness and dissemination of the varieties among cassava farmers, while interventions should target the promotion of both production and consumption of such cassava varieties. Key words: adoption of bio-fortified cassava varieties; vitamin A deficiency related diseases

This paper examined climate change adaptation strategies in fish farming and the effect of such methods on the profit of fish farmers in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country. Using cross‐sectional data obtained from 420 fish farmers from the region and applying multivariate probit and instrumental variable regressions, the study found that fish farmers have adopted a broad range of strategies to address climate risk and that these have significantly increased farmers’ profit. Our findings indicated important relationships between certain farm, socio‐economic and institutional characteristics and the adaptation actions. The study provides useful insight into factors that potentially encourage the adoption of livelihood‐enhancing climate risk adaptation strategies by fish farmers in the Niger Delta region and similar contexts.

This paper studies a topic in the triangle of environment, development and health—the effectiveness of the improved cooking solution. While a range of improved cook-stoves (ICS) is available in the market, since decades with a number of new entrants from recent years, adoption is still low in many developing regions, such as sub-Saharan Africa, also because stove performance is sometimes found to be deficient. However, in Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country, few improved cook-stove interventions are on-going. Incidentally, there is little evidence on the effect of improved cook-stoves on different components of health and environmental outcomes in rural Nigeria. This study, using cross-sectional data from Cross River State, the State with the largest forest area in the country, analyzed the impacts of locally designed improved cook-stoves on the environmental and health outcomes of rural women. A sample of four hundred (400) married women was drawn from eight rural communities with the highest concentration of improved cook-stove users. The woman in-charge of cooking in each household was the respondent. Also, in each household, the household head (if different from the primary cook) was interviewed. Using inverse propensity score weighting for data analysis, we found significant fuel and time savings from the adoption of the cook-stove. However, this study found no evidence of the reduction of indoor air pollution associated diseases given stove design and users’ behavior. This underscores the need to revisit the design of the stove and consider users’ cooking behavior in the design.

An in-depth understanding of the impact of vulnerability on livelihoods and food security is important in deploying effective adaptation actions. The Nigerian agricultural sector is dominated by rainfed and non-homogenous smallholder farming systems. A number of climate change risk studies have emerged in the last decade. However, little attention has been given to vulnerability assessments and the operationalization of vulnerability. To highlight this shortcoming, this study systematically reviewed climate-change-focused vulnerability assessments in the agricultural sector by evaluating (1) variation in climate variables in Nigeria over time;(2) the state of climate change vulnerability assessment in Nigerian agriculture; (3) the theoretical foundations, operationalization approaches, and frameworks of vulnerability assessments in Nigeria; (4) the methods currently used in vulnerability assessments; and (5) lessons learned from the vulnerability studies. We used a linear trend of climatic data spanning over a period of 56 years obtained from the Nigerian Meteorological Agency and the Climate Research Unit of the University of East Anglia, United Kingdom, along with a systematic review of literature to achieve the objectives. The analysis indicates a significant and positive correlation between temperature and time in all major agro-ecological zones. For precipitation, we found a non-significant correlation between precipitation in the Sahel, Sudan, and Guinea Savanna zones with time, while the other zones recorded positive but significant associations between precipitation and time. The systematic review findings indicate no clear progress in publications focused specifically on vulnerability assessments in the Nigerian agricultural sector. There has been progress recently in applying frameworks and methods. However, there are important issues that require addressing in vulnerability assessments, including low consideration for indigenous knowledge and experience, unclear operationalization of vulnerability, non-standardization of vulnerability measures, and inadequacy of current assessments supporting decision making.