Food security and productivity among urban farmers in Kaduna State, Nigeria

Abstract

This study to investigated food security and productivity among urban farmers’ in Kaduna State Two-stage sampling procedure was used to select 213 respondents for the study. Interview schedule was used to collect data. Data were analysed using descriptive statistics (food security index, food insecurity/ surplus gap index and productivity index) and multiple regression model. The results show that 54.5% of the households were food insecure. The average daily per capita calorie intake for food secure households was 65516.28 kcal. The mean age of the respondents was 46 years old, 46% had tertiary education and average farm size was 1.25 ha. Regression model predicted food security status at 70.3% accuracy with MacFadden R-square of 0.13. This implies that all variables were able to explain 64% of the variation in food security status of the households, implying that on average, the probability of urban farming households will be food secure at 51%. The log-likelihood was significant at 1% and the average marginal effect was 0.51. All the variables included were able to explain 64% of the variation in food security status of the households. Therefore, it recommended that viral extension services and appropriate measures to be implemented to change behaviour of urban farmers and boost their productivity, thereby reducing food insecurity and increase income of urban farmers in the area.

Keywords: Food security, urban agricultural productivity, farming household