Food poverty dynamics and the determinants across households in rural south south Nigeria

Abstract

This article takes a dynamic approach to the study of poverty by investigating how households exist and stay in poverty over time in rural South South, Nigeria while focusing on the food dimension of poverty. South South region is at the center of multiple risk factors: natural, ecological, social and economic that result in highly volatile income and consumption pattern for households. Balancing potential welfare loss of rural households depends in part on the effectiveness of existing programmes. This article uses the panel data set for farm households collected by the National Bureau for Statistics between 2010 and 2012 to evaluate the effectiveness of these programmes. The article used the Multinomial Logit Model (MLM) to determine the conditional probability of poverty transition. The descriptive analysis and the econometric model both lead to results that illustrate the significance of food poverty determinants in a dynamic perspective.

Keywords: Vulnerability, food security, Social protection, rural households and poverty