Cost and Calorie Analysis of Food Consumption in Artisanal Fishery Households in North-Western and North-Central Nigeria

Abstract

A study was conducted to assess- the food calorie intake and factors that determine food security status of fisherfolks in North-Central and North-Western Nigeria. Data were collected from 267 rural fishery households using a multi-stage random sampling procedure. The main tools of analysis include descriptive statistics, Cost of calorie intake and Tobit models. The study revealed that the fishery household heads were male dominated (94%); average age of 49 years with mean adjusted household size of 8. The estimated mean years of schooling of sampled fisherfolks were 3.5 years, largely skewed towards the informal education and below 2015 UNDP mean education index of 5 years for Nigeria. The calorie intake for the secured fisherfolks households recorded higher values for the entire food intake than the insecured households. The result showed that only 35.58% of the sampled fisheries households were food secured while majority (64.42%) of the sampled households were food insecured. The determinants of food insecurity status were socio-economic variables and those factors that influenced the food secured fisherfolks showed slight variation from those influenced households that were food insecured and where it did, it was not by the same magnitude and direction. There is need for an appropriate policy mix that will promote the increased production of legumes and animal protein foods in the study area to raise and meet the minimum average protein required per caput per day. Food insecure households should be educate by extension agents through their cooperative societies to increase production of maize, sorghum, millet, rice and cowpea to enhance their food security status.

The Chasm of Persistent Food Calorie Intake Deficiency of Proletarians in Nigeria’s Northern States: A Perception or a Reality?

“…A threshold value of 2260kcal recommended by FAO was used as a benchmark that defines calorie intake food security. The formula is as follows (Abdulrahman et al, 2017;Oladimeji et al, 2018):…”

“…Foster et al (1984) suggested a cost of calorie intake index to find the minimum cost that can finance the minimum calorie required to maintain the body and the soul together. Below is the formula (Abdulrahman et al, 2017;Oladimeji et al, 2018):…”

Estimating the Treatment Effect of Land Degradation on Smallholder Arable Crop Farmers’ Food Security and Productivity in Kwara State, Nigeria

“…T-statistics adopted from Oladimeji et al (2016) was used to determine the hypotheses that state that land degraded had no impact on food security and productivity of farmers. The formula is given as: 4) where; X1 = food expenditure in N (a proxy for food security)/average output kg(a proxy for productivity) from arable crop farmers affected by land degradation, X2 = average output (kg)/food expenditure (N) from arable crop farmers not affected by land degradation, …”

“…This may be attributed to the fact that education create awareness on land degradation issues and enhance adoption of new innovation and techniques on land management practices. Awotide et al (2015), Oladimeji et al (2016), andOgunniyi et al (2018), have shown that education plays systematic role in adoption of technology. The coefficient of farm size holdings was positive and statistically significant at 1% level of probability.…”

The Relevance of Shari’ah to Curbing Insecurity in the North-Central Nigeria

“…In view of this, this research is designed to carefully establish the relevance of Shari'ah to curbing insecurity in the North Central, Nigeria. Oladimeji, 2015).…”