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Contributions of homestead agriculture to food security among urban households in Abakaliki Metropolis of Ebonyi State, Nigeria
Abstract
Despite increasing discourse about the potentials and impacts of urban agriculture to households’ food security status in urban centres, it seems there is little or no empirical evidence on the contributions of homestead agriculture to food security of urban households in Abakaliki metropolis of Ebonyi State, Nigeria. Consequently, this employed combination of multistage random and purposive sampling techniques, comprised 120 respondents to assess this study. Primary data used for the study were collected with the aid of structured questionnaire that was administered to sampled respondents. Both descriptive and inferential statistics were used for the study in accordance with the specific objectives. The result revealed that homestead farmers in Abakaliki metropolis engaged mainly in the production of five classes of food crops and livestock, namely; leave vegetables such as ugu (87.5), spinach (71.7%) and bitter leaf (65.8%); roots and tube; (cassava (66.7%) and yam 54.2%)); cereal (maize (60.8%), spice (pepper, 58.3%) and livestock (poultry, 52.5%). The study identified food security, economic security and nutritional security as the three (3) major factors that influenced homestead agriculture in Abakaliki metropolis. The food security index showed that 52.5% of the urban households were food secure while 47.5% of them were food insecure. Institutional, tenureship and economic factors were identified and extracted as the constraints to homestead agriculture. The study recommended the creation of urban farm estate to encourage residents to have access to land for urban agriculture at a reduced rate; and development of all-inclusive programmes that will enhance urban farmers’ access to production inputs and advisory services.
Keywords: Food crops, Livestock, Food Security, and homestead farmers
