Assessment of Rural Households’ Food Insecurity in Ekiti State, Nigeria

Abstract

Attaining food security is one of the targets of the Sustainable Development Goals. Despite the various efforts made by governments, food insecurity continues to be a major developmental problem across the globe. Research shows that food production in Nigeria is increasing at a rate of less than 2.0% while the population growth rate is estimated to be increasing at 2.5% per annum. Therefore, this study was carried out to assess rural households’ food insecurity in Ekiti state, Nigeria. Descriptive statistics, Per-capita Food Consumption Expenditure, Probit Regression Analysis, Likert Rating Scale, and Household Food Insecurity Access Scale (HFIAS) were used to achieve the objectives. A multi-stage sampling procedure was used to select 240 respondents used for the study. Results show that the respondents were in their active working age with an average age of about 46 years and marital status, educational qualification, primary occupation, access to credit, and age were significant drivers of food insecurity in the study area. Also, 68.33% of the respondents were food insecure while only 31.67% of the respondents were food secure. Seven out of ten generated perception statements developed were rated ‘agreed’ while the remaining three statements were rated disagreed. The results of HFIAS show that 31.7% of the respondents were least food insecure and 48.2% were moderately food insecure while the remaining 20.1% were most food insecure. Recommendations were made based on the findings of the research work that governmental and non-governmental organizations should make credit facilities available to the people in the study area in other to augment income inconsistency and policy measures that will enhance increase scale of production should be encouraged.