Food Insecurity and its Correlates: Empirical Evidence from Fish Farming Households in Nigeria

Abstract

Over the years, the Nigerian government and partner agencies have implemented several interventions to unlock the untapped food security potential of aquaculture. However, there still exists a dearth of knowledge on the effect of these programmes on household food security, particularly among fish farming households in Nigeria. Therefore, this study engaged the Foster-Greer-Thorbecke model and the Probit model to examine the food insecurity incidence and the drivers of food security among the fish farming households in Nigeria. The study engaged secondary data of 1,587 fish farmers from the 2018/19 Nigeria Living Standard Survey panel data. The food insecurity estimates show that about 52.49% of fish farmers are food secure. The result further shows that most food insecure households are males, married, have fish farming as a primary occupation, reside in a rural area and are from the Northern part of the country with no formal education. Empirical evidence reveals that education, household size, access to phone, occupation, sector and location of the household head are the major determinants of food security. The study concludes that educating the fish farmers and upgrading the rural facilities will increase the probability of food security among the fish farming households in Nigeria.