Nutrition Outcomes of Under-five Children of Smallholder Farm Households: Do Higher Commercialization Levels Lead to Better Nutritional Status?

Abstract

The study investigated the nutritional status of under-five children of farm households. The study utilized primary data from 352 farm households with 140 under-five children. Household crop commercialization index (CCI) was used to estimate cassava farm household crop sale ratio and categorize the households into four commercialization levels while WHO Anthro software was employed to analyze under-five children anthropometric indices such as weight-for-age z-score (WAZ), height-for-age z-score (HAZ) and weight-for-height z-score (WHZ). Logit regression model (LRM) was used to examine the drivers of under-five children’s nutritional status of farm households. The study found that 42.9%, 7.9% and 3.6% of the children are stunted, underweight and wasted respectively. The highest stunting level was recorded in zero level households (CCI 1). Although, some higher CCI households (medium-high and very-high level) recorded increased percent of stunted children. This revealed that being a member of low or high-level commercialization households may not guarantee better nutritional status of young children of farm households. The results of LRM indicated that the predictors of children nutritional status were child’s age, farm size, access to electricity, healthcare and commercialization variables. Moreover, weak positive and negative relationships exist between CCI and children’s nutrition outcomes as measured by the z-scores. The study recommended maternal nutrition-sensitive education intervention that can improve nutrition knowledge of mothers and provision of infrastructure that enhance increased farm production and promote healthy living among farm households.

Dietary diversity, nutritional status, and agricultural commercialization: evidence from adult men of rural farm households

“…Also, the crop sold ratio (cassava commercialization variable) was not statistically significant, indicating that CCI levels of farm households was not one of the influencing factors determining the nutritional status of adult men. This finding was contrary to other studies that reported that CCI levels of farm families was one of the influencing factors determining the malnutrition status of under-5 [ 4 ] and adolescents in Southwestern Nigeria [ 28 ].…”

“…Previous studies in Africa have focused on the dietary diversity (DD) of women especially those of child bearing age category [ 11 , [20] , [21] ] and others, from the perspective of under-five children of agricultural and non-agricultural households [ 3 , [22] , [23] ]. Further, some studies investigated DD of some other age groups in the households such as adolescents [ 3 , 24 , 25 ] while studies regarding the nutritional status (NS) of members of household have also been given some level of priority in literature [ [26] , [27] , [28] ].…”

COVID-19 Pandemic Impacts Food Security and Causes Psychosocial Stress in Nigeria

“…However, the prevalence of undernourishment increased globally from 9.3% in 2020 to 9.8% in 2021 under the influence of COVID-19 pandemic [9]. Meanwhile, Africa remained the region with the heaviest burden of hunger having 278 million (20.2%) of the population affected by hunger in 2021 [9,10]. In Nigeria, the recent food insecurity situation calls for immediate humanitarian intervention with rising number of undernourished people coupled with an estimated 41 percent of the population living in extreme poverty [11,12].…”