This paper develops a Vulnerability to Food Insecurity Index (VFII). Currently, there is no standard indicator of vulnerability analysis in food security research, and this paper responds to this challenge. The primary objective in this paper is to demonstrate how to develop a potential indicator and establish its validity through comparison with other traditional food security indicators, such as per capita calorie consumption (PCC), food consumption score (FCS) and the coping strategy index (CPI). Structurally, Vulnerability to Food Insecurity Index is a multidimensional index of the probability of covariate shock occurring (exposure), the accumulative experience of food insecurity (sensitivity) and coping ability of households (adaptive capacity). The paper applies the index to households in southern Nigeria, using the World Bank's generalised household panel dataset. The results show 61% of households in the study to be highly vulnerable to food insecurity, 12% mildly vulnerable and 27% not vulnerable. Traditional and single indicators, such as FCS and PCC are not good indicators of vulnerability to food insecurity whereas CPI is a better indicator of vulnerability to food insecurity compared to FCS and PCC. The VFII developed in this paper includes components of FCS, PCC, and CPI and regarding ranking, the VFII was found to be reliable. Most importantly, the analysis using the VFII reveals how dietary diversity or calorie consumption indicators can exclude some households who are vulnerable to food insecurity. The paper concluded that accurately target long-term support to vulnerable households, policymakers who seek to address the underlying causes of food insecurity cannot rely on single indicators, and for this type of goal, the VFII makes a useful contribution.

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The study analyzed food security status of urban food crop farming households in Cross River State. A two-stage sampling technique was used to obtain a sample size of 217 urban food crop farmers in three urban areas in Cross River State namely; Calabar, Ikom and Ugep. The USDA approach was used to analyze and measure the intensity of food insecurity and hunger among farm households in the study area. The result showed that only 12.44% of urban farmers were food secure, 55.76% were food insecure without hunger, 25.35% were moderately food insecure with hunger and 6.45% were severely food insecure with hunger. Staple food crops such as cassava, yam, rice, and maize were shown to contribute immensely to the food security status of farming households. Buying foods on credit, allowing their children to eat first, and occasionally eating fruit were the coping strategies adopted by urban food crop farming households against food insecurity. The study therefore recommends among other things, that to reduce food insecurity, farmers should be encouraged to produce more cassava, yam, rice and maize, and this staple food crops should be made available and accessible for household consumption.

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