Effects of gender-based roles on farm households’ food security status in rural areas of Kogi State, Nigeria

Abstract

Gender is one of the key issues of discourse among policy experts, research scholars and government as part of the sustainable development goals. In this paper, we examined gender roles in food security among farming households in Kogi state, Nigeria. First, we assessed the food security status of the farm households. Second, the contributions of gender in household security status were identified. A three-stage sampling technique was used to select 120 farm households and data were collected using a well-structured questionnaire. In the study we employed the use of food security index, chi square test and logistic regression analysis. The results revealed that only about 35% of the households are food secure (>2470 kcal/AE/day). The logistic regression model shows that fitted model is statistically significant with the log likelihood of 118.691 and Chi-square of 59.19 (P value < 0.05) with the R2 of 0.61. Household size, access to credit and membership of social groups are significant factors influencing households’ food security status. Therefore, the study recommends that women empowerments should be inculcated into the mainstream of any government policy targeted at ensuring food security of rural households.