Food Security Status of Food Crop Farming Households in Crude Oil Producing Communities in Akwa Ibom State, Nigeria

Abstract

The study analyzed the food security status of food crop farming households in selected crude oil producing communities in Akwa Ibom State, Nigeria. The specific objectives were to: describe the socio-economic characteristics of respondents; assess the food security status of farming households in the area; ascertain the determinants of food security status among farming households; analyse the effects of farming households’ productivity on food security status of respondents; and make recommendations. Data collected from 270 food crop farming households were analyzed using the Logistic regression model,. The USDA approach was also employed to assess the food security status. From the findings, the study area was dominated by male (55.6%), educated (63.5%) and married (78.5%) food crop farmers who were quite experience with average of 15 years of experience and mean household size of 9 persons. Majority (62.2%) were full time farmers whose farms (80.46%) were located within a distance of 1-5 kilometres. The assessment of the food security status of farming households revealed that majority (85.9%) of the food crop farmers were food insecure while only 14.10% were food secure. A breakdown of the 85.9% shows that about 57% were food insecure without hunger, 21.9% were food insecure with moderate hunger while 7% were food insecure with severe hunger. The major determinants of aggregate food crop productivity were labour, farm size, expenditure on fertilizer, expenditure on planting materials, educational attainment and household size. Result of the productivity analysis shows that aggregate food crop productivity exerted significant positive influence on food security at the 1% level of significance. The study concluded that there is prospect for increase productivity among food crop farmers in the study area if productivity enhancing policies and startegies are adopted. The study recommends that there is need to educate food crop farmers, increase farm sizes and also reduce household sizes. Extension agents can be involved as well as awareness campaigns carried out to educate farmers on the need for family planning as well as on productivity enhancing strategies. Keywords: Food Security, Food Crop, farming Households, Crude Oil DOI: 10.7176/JESD/12-12-06 Publication date: June 30 th 2021