Assessment of farm resources and livelihood strategies adopted in mitigating crop farmers’ food insecurity during insurgency in North-eastern Nigeria

Abstract

The North-eastern part of Nigeria has experienced a number of insurgencies since 2009 which have intensified an unsecured livelihood among rural populace. The study assessed farm resources and livelihood strategies adopted in mitigating crop farmers’ food insecurity in north-eastern Nigeria. A three-stage sampling process with a proportionate factor led to 376 farmers from the three states of north-eastern Nigeria: Adamawa, Borno and Yobe. Primary data were collected through structured questionnaire and analysed using livelihood index, t-statistics and Chi-square model. The results of human resource characteristics of the sampled farmers show that majority (73.9%) were male, 86.5% were within the productive age range of 21-60 years with a mean of 47 years; 92.3% of the pooled farmers were married which implies that the farmers may have labour resource available resulting from their spouses and children. Substantial number of respondents (89.3%) had one form of education or the others. Crop sale (69.6%) was the major source of income during the pre-peak period while increase in livestock sales and off-farm income increase to 33.2 and 36.4%, at post-peak period. Reducing the expenditure of the household and outmigration of some family members, with Kendall’s coping index of 1.72 and 1.17 were the foremost food insecurity coping strategies adopted by the farmers at pre-peak and post-peak period, respectively. The farmers mitigate the effects of food insecurity using more of reversible strategies such as reduction of the expenditure of the household to buy food at pre-peak compared to pre-peak.