Abstract
BackgroundEmpowering women, land tilting to enhance the security of Land Tenure and Property Rights (LTPRs) in agriculture vis-a-vis food and nutrition security are crucial in the pursuit of the Sustainable Development Goals. The main goal of this paper is to examine the crucial roles of women’s empowerment and LTPRs as they affect household food security among smallholder farmers in Nigeria.MethodologyCross-sectional data were obtained from 1152 maize and rice farmers, selected by multistage random sampling across 192 communities, 16 States and the six geopolitical zones in Nigeria. The data were collected on households’ socio-economics, food security situations, empowerment and LTPRs on parcels cultivated during the 2016/17 farming season by interviewing the adult members of the farmers’ households. HFS was assessed using the United States Department of Agriculture’ HFS Survey Module and Food and Agriculture Organization guidelines for measuring Household Dietary Diversity Score. LTPRs were measured in terms of tenure type and title registration to farmlands. HFS modelling was within the framework of Poisson, Instrumental Variable Poisson (IVP) and Zero-inflated Poisson (ZIP) regression methods, with endogeneity concerns and choice of specification addressed within Hausman specification tests.ResultsThe results of the study show that households that have a share of farmland on purchase and also participate in off-farm activities are likely to be certainly food-secure in all regards. Crop diversity, households that cultivate maize only, the share of farmland on purchase and access to extension contact significantly reduce the severity of food insecurity while an increase in farm size increases the severity of food insecurity. Similarly, IV Poisson and ZIP Count results show that increase in the farm size results in the severity of food insecurity. The evidence with respect to women’s empowerment reveals that gender parity and female achievement in group membership, income control, as well as workload; reduce the extent of food insecurity among the farming households in Nigeria. We, however, discover that the female achievement in the productive decision and credit increases the severity of food insecurity among the smallholder farmers. The analyses also reveal that education of the household head, female achievement in the asset; group membership and workload are the major factors that positively influenced household dietary diversity.ConclusionThe study suggests the adoption of climate-smart practices to overcome the issue of marginal farmlands, promotion of crop and livelihood diversification among the smallholder farmers, effective extension services delivery, and improving women’s access to productive resources to enhance household food security status in Nigeria.
Highlights
Empowering women, land tilting to enhance the security of Land Tenure and Property Rights (LTPRs) in agriculture vis-a-vis food and nutrition security are crucial in the pursuit of the Sustainable Development Goals
The study suggests the adoption of climate-smart practices to overcome the issue of marginal farmlands, promotion of crop and livelihood diversification among the smallholder farmers, effective extension services delivery, and improving women’s access to productive resources to enhance household food security status in Nigeria
Empowering women, land tilting to enhance the security of Land Tenure and Property Rights (LTPRs) in agriculture vis-a-vis food and nutrition security are crucial in the pursuit of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 2 and 5 which are to be achieved by the year 2030
Summary
Empowering women, land tilting to enhance the security of Land Tenure and Property Rights (LTPRs) in agriculture vis-a-vis food and nutrition security are crucial in the pursuit of the Sustainable Development Goals. Empowering women, land tilting to enhance the security of Land Tenure and Property Rights (LTPRs) in agriculture vis-a-vis food and nutrition security are crucial in the pursuit of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 2 and 5 which are to be achieved by the year 2030. These SDGs emphasized the need to end hunger, achieve food security, improve nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture as well as to achieve gender equality, and empower all women and girls. The customary rights of occupancy are governed by the largely unwritten customary laws in various localities and are considered de facto held by holders of agricultural lands in rural areas that have been under use for agricultural purposes prior to the enactment of the Land Use Act of 1979 [35, 52]
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