Impact assessment of cooperatives on food security among catfish farming households in Oyo State, Nigeria

Abstract

Lack of agricultural credit has remained a major constraint to production in agriculture. The role of cooperatives particularly among farming households in expanding productivity and eventually ensuring food security cannot be overstated. This study examined food security status and its determinants among catfish farming households in Oyo State, Nigeria. A multistage sampling technique was employed to select 120 catfish farming households. Primary data was collected using a structured questionnaire and analyzed using descriptive statistics, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) household food security model and logit regression. Results from this study showed that the average household head in the study area was 43 years old. The majority (82.4%) were married with an average household size of 5 persons. The catfish farmers were highly educated with 91.8% having a formal education. The majority (93.5%) had a farming experience of 1-2 years and less than half (42.5%) had access to extension services. About two-thirds of the farmers were members of a cooperative society out of which 52.5% were loan beneficiaries. In terms of food security status, 38.3% of the households were highly food secure, 21.7% were marginally food secure, 13.3% had low food security status and 26.7% of the households were very low food secure. Food insecurity exists among the catfish farming households as a cumulative percentage of 40% were food insecure. Household food security status in the study area as modelled by the logit regression was determined by educational qualification (p<0.05), household size (p<0.01), farming experience (p<0.01), income (p<0.01) and cooperative members that were loan beneficiaries (p<0.01). This study recommended that efforts and policies should be directed towards timely loan accessibility to farmers to address their resource acquisition challenges and eventually improve food security status. Awareness should also be created to encourage farmers to organize themselves into groups and also be members of a cooperative society.