Analysis of Food Insecurity Status of Urban Food Crop Farming Households in Cross River State, Nigeria: A USDA Approach

Abstract

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.

Food Security Status of Households in a Cassava-Growing Village in Southeast Sulawesi, Indonesia

“…However, compared to findings reported in various studies, the number of households with food secure status in the present study was much higher. For example, the reported proportion of food-secure households in Nigeria varied from 12.44% (Ibok et al, 2014) Indrasti, 2017). The methodologies applied for measuring food security in some of those studies were different from that used in the present study, but still the percentage of food secure households in the study area was very high particularly in the context of poor cassava-growing households in rural areas.…”

“…Many studies have shown that cassava can contribute to enhancement of food security status of farming households (Muhammad-Lawal, Omotesho, & Oyedemi, 2013;Widyanti et al, 2014, Ibok, Idiong, Brown, Okon, & Okon, 2014Saediman, Limi, Rosmawaty, Arimbawa, & Indarsyih, 2016;Reincke et al, 2018). However, studies that particularly focus on food security of poor cassava-growing households are lacking.…”

Do floods affect food security? A before-and-after comparative study of flood-affected households’ food security status in South-Eastern Nigeria

“…The per capita food expenditure method had been applied by Omonona and Agoi (2007), Adepoju and Olawuyi (2012) and Ibok, Bassey et al (2014), while Ojogho (2010), Asogwa and Umeh (2012), Olagunju et al (2012), Welderufael (2014), Yusuf et al (2015) and Dawit and Zeray (2017) applied the cost-of-calorie method. The Household Food Security Survey Module (HFSSM), which classifies households using a constructed linear food security scale was employed by Sanusi et al (2006), Fakayode et al (2009), Ibok, Idiong et al (2014) and Coleman-Jensen et al (2015).…”

Household food security and its determinants in agrarian communities of southeastern Nigeria

“…Global agricultural production has recorded an incredible increase (Ibok Idiong et al, 2014), even though a large number of people remain hungry and malnourished (Ambali et al, 2015). According to FAO (2010), 925 million people were approximately undernourished in 2010 with about 900 million of them living in developing countries while FAO (2015) estimated 217.8 million undernourished people to be living in Sub-Saharan African between 2014 and 2016.…”