DETERMINANTS OF FOOD SECURITY STATUS OF SMALL FARM
rural areas where the main economic activity is agriculture. Very evidently, beyond the contribution of agriculture to GDP and employment, farming constitutes livelihood security at the level of most Nigerian households, yet Nigeria is still faced with food security challenges.
Food is whatever is consumed to provide energy and nourishment for the human body for active and healthy life (Okolo, 2004). The widely accepted definition of food security by World Food Summit and cited by FAO (2006) states that “food security exists when all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life FAO (2006) itemized the dimensions of food security as food availability, food access, utilization, and stability.
Food availability is the accessibility to sufficient quantities of food in appropriate quality, supplied through domestic production or imports including food aid.
Food access refers to access by individuals to adequate resources (entitlements) for acquiring appropriate foods for a nutritious diet. Food utilization means utilization of food through adequate diet, clean water, sanitation and health care to reach a state of nutritional well-being where all physical needs are met. Food stability implies that to be food secure, a population, household or individual must have access to adequate food at all times. They should not risk losing access to food as a consequence of sudden shocks for example an economic or climatic crisis or cyclical events such as seasonal food insecurity. The concept of stability can therefore refer to both the availability and access dimensions of food security.
Therefore, two broad groups of factors determine food security. These are supply and demand side factors (Omonona,2008).
The supply-side are those that determine physical access to food at national, household and intra-household levels. The demand side factors determine the degree of economic access or entitlement to available food.
Common to these two sets of factors is stability (not losing such access) of physical and economic access to food. Dependence on labour-intensive, low input-output technologies; high levels of post harvest losses due to poor handling, inadequate development of agro-processing as well as poor rural infrastructure and limited access to marketing opportunities (BGL Agriculture Report,2009). Policy, according to this view should focus on improving the market and distribution chain, as there is enough domestic production.
The widely accepted World Food Summit definition of food security has not only enriched food security information but reinforced the need for food security intervention programmes to focus on the promotion and recovery of livelihood options particularly at the farming households levels. Livelihood and food security successes are dependent on each other (FAO, 2005). Since 2001, livelihood approaches are now fundamental to Food and Agriculture Organization's Food Security Intervention Programmes. They are increasingly applied in emergency, contexts and include the concepts of vulnerability, risk coping, risk management as well as the analysis of food insecurity as a social and political construct (FAO, 2006; Devereux and Maxwell, 2001). A review of the impact of 30 agricultural interventions comprising home gardening, livestock, mixed garden and livestock, cash cropping and irrigation (Berti, Krasevec & Fitzgerald, 2004) provided the evidence that the promotion of access to food is linked with livelihood assets (human, natural, financial, physical and social).
Several researches have supported that food supplementation interventions are not sufficient, and that livelihood and economic strengthening programmes need to be intimately linked with comprehensive and integrated food security interventions for long term success of food security technical assistance. The need also strongly arise for food security interventions targeted towards food insecure farming households, to be
based on a realistic analysis of their socio-economic conditions, thus providing an adequate understanding of how they live and make a living.
U n d e r s t a n d i n g t h e s o c i o - e c o n o m i c conditions of the food insecure assumes sizable importance. This is because for farm households to be truly food secure at all times, their livelihood systems must be economically, socially and environmentally sustainable. Small farm households in Delta State like other farmers in Nigeria are characterized by subsistence farming with small farms, use of simple tools and low input-output technologies among others.
These are likely to aggravate food insecurity.
The socio-economic characteristics of farmers that contribute to food security could not be categorically stated/ascertained in order to adequately enhance the potentials of small farm households' food security status, To achieve this requires support targeted towards food insecure farm households based on a realistic analysis of their livelihood strategies that provide an adequate understanding of how they live and make a living.
Based on this background, the general objective of the study was to assess the food security status of small farm households in Delta State, Nigeria. Specifically, the objectives were to:
(i) e x a m i n e t h e s o c i o - e c o n o m i c characteristics of small farm households;
(ii) analyze the food security status of the rural farming households in the study area; and
(iii) Determine the socio-economic variables influencing farming households' food security status.
Methodology
The study was conducted in Delta State, Nigeria. Delta state is made up of 25 Local Government Areas (LGAs). The target population of the study was the small holder food crop farming households located in the 3 ecological zones of the State. The
agro-ecological zones are made up of 25 blocks and 6 blocks were randomly selected for the study. Three cells were selected from each of the 6 blocks 3 cells were randomly selected to give a total of 18 cells. These 18 cells represent the farming communities in the State, with an average of 6 communities selected per cell. A simple random sampling of 10 small farm households was undertaken in each cell to give a total sample size of 180 households but only 127 (70.6%) responses were found useful for the study.
Frequency counts, percentages, mean, mode and standard deviation were adopted in d e s c r i b i n g t h e s o c i o - e c o n o m i c characteristics of farm household heads in the survey. The mean per capita calorie intake of respondents in the survey was a n a l y z e d u s i n g f r e q u e n c y c o u n t s , percentages, mean, mode and standard deviation, while the t-test was used to ascertain if the estimated mean per capita daily calorie intake was significantly different from the FAO recommended 2260Kcal per capita food security. The test statistics employed (Spartz and Johnston, 1981; Koutsoyiannis 2003) was:
t = X-U/Sx
t = calculated t-statistic
x = mean value of estimated daily per capita calorie (proxy for food security).
U = FAO recommended minimum calorie intake (food security line)
SX = Standard error of the mean S = Sample standard error
Where the calculated t-statistic is greater than the t-critical (from t-distribution table) a statistical difference is said to exist between both nutritional levels implying the study area is food insecure; but if the calculated t-statistic is less than the t-critical, no statistical difference exists between both nutritional levels and the study area is classified as food secure. In addition, three indices of food security headcount index, 117
(shortfall/surplus index, food security index) were used to evaluate the food security status of the households as follows:
(i) Headcount Index (H). The headcount index (H) provides a measure of the proportion of households whose food consumption is below the food security line of 2260kcal per capita. H
= M/N
Where H= Headcount index
M= number of food secure (or in secure) households
N= number of households in the sample
(ii) Shortfall/surplus index ( P ) which measures the extent to which households are below (or above) the food security line
P= I/ M Gi L=1
P = shortfall/surplus Index
M= number of food insecure households
Gi= per capita calorie intake deficiency of the ith household
Gi = Yi-R/R
(iii) Food security index (Z). Based on the FAO recommended food security line of 2260 Kcal per capita, a food security index (Z) was constructed from the relationship:
Z = Yi/Ri
Zi = food status of ith household Yi = daily per capita calorie intake
of ith household
R = recommended per capita daily calorie intake (2260Kcal) The value of Zi was used to dichotomize households as follows:
Zi ≥ 1 = food secure household Zi < = food insecure household
Logistic binary regression model was employed in determining the food security status in the study area. Following Gujarati (2004) the logistic regression model was specified as:
Yi = In Pi = B + Bi Xi...U:0 1-Pi
where:
ln = Anti-logarithm
Pi = odd ratio in favour of being food 1-Pi secure
Yi = food status of ith farm household (1 if food secure; 0 if food insecure).
Xi = explanatory variables (sex, age, household size) farm size, per capita household food availability; house ownership educational status, farm income, off farm income and access to extension services) of the ith household
Results and Discussion.
The mean age of household head was 54 years. This is congruent with the finding of USAID (2005) that the average age of Nigerian farmers is above 50 years. The mean household size was 6.8 members per household with more than half (54.4%) of the households maintaining between 5-7 members and few (4.7%) had above 10 members. The results further showed that mean farm size cultivated was 1.25ha and with respect to access to extension services, it was observed that 33.9% of the household heads had access to extension services while 66.1% had no access to extension services.
As farm size is expected to be positively related to food security, the small farm sizes cultivated strongly indicate food insecurity particularly when productivity enhancing inputs are not used. Similarly, access to extension services connotes access to information about modern and improved methods of farming; the lack of access to extension services by majority of respondents may hinder their access to improved farm practising information thus hindering the attainment of food security.
Table 1: Frequency and percentage distribution of respondents by socio-economic characteristics
Socio-economic Characteristics Frequency % Mean (x)
Age of household head(years) 54.0 ±8.47
<30 1 0.8
30-39 9 7.1
40-49 27 21.3
50-59 72 56.7
≤60 18 14.1
Household size (persons) 6.8 ± 2.19
2-4 15 11.8
5-7 69 54.4
8-10 37 29.1
>10 6 4.7
Farm size (ha) 1.25 ± 0.44
< 0.5 2 1.6
0.5 -0.9 29 22.8
1.0-1.4 59 46.5
1.5-1.9 29 22.8
≥2.0 8 6.3
Access to extension services
Contact 43 33.9
No contact 84 66.1
The mean per capita daily calorie intake of the study area was 2158.77 Kcal. The mean per capita daily calorie intake was found to be statistically different from the FAO
recommended food security line of 2260Kcal at 1% (P≤ 0.01). Therefore, the average farm households in the study area are food insecure (Table 2).
Table 2: Distribution of respondents per calorie intake
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_____________________________________________________________________________________
Calorie intake (Kcal) Frequency % Mean (x)
1601-1800 7 5.5
1801-2000 23 18.1
2001-2200 40 31.5
2201-2400 40 31.5
2401-2600 17 13.4 2158.77±216.91
Source: Field survey, 2011
The results of the food security indices estimated for the study area are as shown in Table 3. Eighty five (85) or 67% farm households were food insecure (headcount ratio= 0.67), computed was 0.07, Z=0.95 and mean household size (adult equivalent) = 3.75. the headcount (H) value of 0.67 for food insecure households means that more than
two thirds (67%) of the respondents in the study area are subsisting on less than the recommended daily per capita requirement, the shortfall index value of -0.07 means that the food insecure households fell below the food security line by 7% and the mean status index (z) value of 0.95 for food insecure households implies that they fell short of 1.00 mark required for a food secure situation.
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Table 3: Security Indices for Food Insecure Households in the Study Area
Food security indices Computed value
Number of food insecure households 85
Headcount ratio (H) 0.67
Shortfall index (P) -0.07
Mean food security index (2) 0.95
Standard deviation of Z 0.09
Mean household size (Adult equivalent) 3.75 Source: Field survey, 2011
Recommended daily per capita calorie intake (R) = 2260 Kcal; n = 127
The food security indices put together provide substantial evidence to classify the study area as temporarily food insure.
As shown in Table 4, the estimated logistic regression model for factors influencing food security status of small farm households is significant based on the overall model chi-square statistic of 62.83 (P≤ 0.01), the unadjusted coefficient of multiple determination (R ) value of 0.054 which 2
implies that the explanatory variables explained about 54% of the variation in food security status, the percentage correctness value of 85.5% indicating the prediction for 85.5% of the total sample (about 109 households) was correct, and the log likelihood ratio value of 98.37. Age of household head (β1=0.61), household size (β2
= 0.583), farm size (β3= 0.915), per capita household food availability (β4 = 0.387) and access to extension services (β5= -0.752) were significant in explaining the variation in the food security status of the households.
This means that the younger the age of the household head, the greater the likelihood of the household being food secure by about 0.9 times over older household heads. Similarly, households with few persons are about 0.6
times more likely to be food secured than households with large number of persons.
Also, households operating large farm sizes are over 6 times more likely to be food secure than households with small farm sizes while households with large stocks of food are about 4 times more likely to be food secured than households with little or no food stock.
Contrary to expectation, access to extension services was observed to be a negative indicator of the likelihood of being food secure with an odd ratio value of 0.064. This indicates that not only access to extension services would increase household food security status, but the timely and accurate utilization of extension messages are very essential in the quest for food security.
Similar findings by Adeniyi, Ayandiji and Ojo (2011) showed that the likelihood of a household being food secure increased with an increase in farm size, use of modern farm inputs on their farms and the likelihood of a household being food secure decreases with an increase in household size and age of the household head. Corroborating the findings of this study, Ademiluyi, Adepoju, and Okeke-Agulu (2011) found that large household size reduces income generation of household, and such households frequently cannot afford to purchase necessary farm inputs to produce food through own production.
Table 4: Logistic regression estimates for factors influencing security status of farm households in the study area.
Variables Coefficient (b) Se T Odd ratio
Constant 3.511 2.539 1.383 33.482
Age (X1) -0.061 0.038 -1.605*** 0.941
Household size (X2) -0.583 0.321 1.816*** 0.558
Farm size (X3) 0.915 0.740 2.588** 6.787
Per capita household food availability (X )4
0.387 0.458 3.028* 4.003
Access to extension services (X ) model 5 statistics
-0.752 0.586 -4.696* 0.064
2 log likelihood ratio 98.37
X2 62.83*
Df 10
R2 0.54
% correctness 85.5
* P≤ 0.01; ** p≤0.05; P≤0.10%; % percentage; df= degrees of freedom Source: Data analysis, 2012
Conclusion
Small farm households in Delta State are food insecure. Also, food security status of the households are determined by age of household head, household size, farm size, per capita household food availability and access to extension services. This implies that the successes of food security interventions targeted at small farm households in the study area, not only depends on strengthening the linkages between food security measures and households' livelihood assets but also on improving socio-economic conditions of farm households for a very sound and sustainable food security outcome.
Recommendations
The policies and strategies aimed at ensuring food security among small farm households in Delta State must take into account the five factors. These factors include age of household head, household size, farm size, per capita household food availability and access to extension services Ensuring food security will involve encouraging all households with emphasis on older heads, larger sizes and small farm sizes through
effective extension services delivery to improve productivity.
Delta State Government should ensure adequate staffing, provision of logistics and motivation of staff for extension services so that small farm households in the State can have access to extension services, improve their productivity for enhance food security.
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