Assessment of Rural Households’ Food Insecurity in Ekiti State, Nigeria

Abstract

<jats:p>Attaining food security is one of the targets of the Sustainable Development Goals. Despite the various efforts made by governments, food insecurity continues to be a major developmental problem across the globe. Research shows that food production in Nigeria is increasing at a rate of less than 2.0% while the population growth rate is estimated to be increasing at 2.5% per annum. Therefore, this study was carried out to assess rural households’ food insecurity in Ekiti state, Nigeria. Descriptive statistics, Per-capita Food Consumption Expenditure, Probit Regression Analysis, Likert Rating Scale, and Household Food Insecurity Access Scale (HFIAS) were used to achieve the objectives. A multi-stage sampling procedure was used to select 240 respondents used for the study. Results show that the respondents were in their active working age with an average age of about 46 years and marital status, educational qualification, primary occupation, access to credit, and age were significant drivers of food insecurity in the study area. Also, 68.33% of the respondents were food insecure while only 31.67% of the respondents were food secure. Seven out of ten generated perception statements developed were rated ‘agreed’ while the remaining three statements were rated disagreed. The results of HFIAS show that 31.7% of the respondents were least food insecure and 48.2% were moderately food insecure while the remaining 20.1% were most food insecure. Recommendations were made based on the findings of the research work that governmental and non-governmental organizations should make credit facilities available to the people in the study area in other to augment income inconsistency and policy measures that will enhance increase scale of production should be encouraged.</jats:p>

Household food security, dietary patterns and nutritional status of young children in a Nigerian community: Situation of post-COVID-19 lockdown

“…A similar high prevalence of food insecurity was reported across the country during this pandemic [20]. In this study, the finding is much higher than what was reported from studies conducted in Ekiti before the pandemic: 68.3% by Toluwalase et al [24] and 64.7% by Oladeji [25]. This finding justifies the concerns that the WHO had on the potential impact of COVID-19 on the food and nutrition situation of the vulnerable groups, especially in developing countries [26].…”

Analysis of Food Insecurity among Rural Farming Households: Evidence from Ikere Local Government Area of Ekiti State, Nigeria

“…This is indicative that the majority (83.6%) of the farming households were food insecure. These results corroborate the findings reported by Toluwase et al [23] on the food insecurity status of rural households in the study area.…”

“…The farming households have a mean size of 6 members. This finding is similar to the average household size of farming households reported by Toluwase et al [23]. The result further suggests that farming households with the average household size could leverage family labor for carrying out various farm operations.…”

“…The HFIAS module was introduced by the Food and Technical Nutrition Assistance (FANTA) project to measure the food insecurity status of households [21]. The tool is comprised of nine generic questions which have been adopted in several past studies [22][23][24] to distinguish between food-secure and food-insecure households. The information provided by the respondents from every question asked can be used to assess the food access situation of households and the prevalence of Household Food Insecurity (HFI) within the past four weeks.…”