The influence of food security on sustainable land management technologies of farming households in Kwara State, Nigeria

Abstract

Suboptimal land management practices (SLM) are degrading soils and undermining food security. Despite this, there is scant information regarding households’ decision towards the effect of food security on SLM technologies. This paper, therefore, measured food security status and assessed the effect of food security on SLM technologies. Structured interview schedule was used to gather data for this study. A three-stage sampling procedure was employed for this study. Two out of the four ADP zones were randomly selected in the first stage. This was followed by a proportionate selection of 30 villages from the two selected zones. Lastly, ten farming households each, were picked randomly from the chosen villages to make up a sample size of 300 farming households. The result revealed that the calculated MPCFE was ₦4218.587 and the proportion of food secure and food insecure households are 37.7% and 62.3% respectively. The findings affirmed that much opportunities exist for increasing productivity and income through increased adoption of SLM technologies among the food insecure households when compared with their food secure counterparts. The R2 value of 29.8% suggests that the explanatory variables explained about 30% of the variation in the explained variable. Furthermore, the factors influencing SLM technologies of households are food security status, family size, monthly income and plot size. This study provides useful insight into policies and actions taken by farmers and government to mitigate the effects of suboptimal use of SLM technologies for improved production and food security. Policies favoring increased plot size should be vigorously pursued.