Analysis of food security status of farmers in Ovia North-East Local Government Area, Edo State, Nigeria

Abstract

The study assessed the food security status of farmers in Ovia North-East Local Government Area of Edo State. A simple random sampling technique was employed to sample a total of 120 farmers from the study area for the study. Data collection was achieved using structured questionnaire. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, food security status analysis and logit regression model. The results showed that farming in the study area was dominated by males (87%) who were married (92%). They had average age, household size, farming experience and crop farm size of 45 years, 7 persons, 7 years and 1.8 ha respectively. Majority of the farmers (77%) were literate. The farmers generated income from both farming of ₦1,780,592.00 (US$5,813.04) and other non-farm sources of ₦107,874.00 (US$352.17), representing 94.28% and 5.72% of total income respectively. Their average per capita income and per capita food expenditure were ₦739.13 (US$2.41) and ₦246.48 (US$0.81) respectively. The farmers' average per capita calorie food intake was 1923.55kcal which is lower than the FAO recommended per capita food consumption of 2700kcal. Consequently, majority (86%) of them were food insecured. The logit regression result showed that age, sex and household size had negative and significant influence on the food security status of the farmers while income from farming had positive and significant effect. It was recommended that since farm income had significant and positive effect on food security, farmers should increase the proportion of their income allocated for food expenditure so as to decrease food insecurity.

Keywords: Analysis, Farmers, Food consumption, Food security, Nigeria