Food Security, Poverty Status and Their Determinants among Rural Farming Households in Ipokia Local Government Area, Ogun State

Abstract

This study examined food security, poverty status and their determinants among rural farming households in Ipokia Local Government Area of Ogun State. A survey research design was adopted for this study. A multi-stage sampling technique was used to select respondents, and structured questionnaires were administered to elicit primary data on household food consumption, expenditure, and income. Data were analysed using descriptive statistics, the Food Security Index, the Foster-Greer-Thorbecke (FGT) poverty index, and binary Logit regression model. Results showed that 72.0% of the total respondents were male, 28.0% were female, 36.0% were aged 41-50 years, 80.0% had formal education, 45.3% had between 6-10 persons as household’s size. The poverty incidence was 64.4%, depth (28.4%) and severity (7.2%). The monthly mean per capita food expenditure was ₦55,700.29 and 41.3% of the total respondents were food secure and 58.7% were not food secure while low farm income/output (1^st) and limited access to credit (2^nd) were ranked as the major constraints to food security in the study area. The coefficients of age (0.061), sex (0.014), marital status (0.645), farm size (0.030) and farming experience (0.036) are positive and significant at the 5% level. The Pseudo R² of 0.312 indicates that the model has a reasonably good explanatory power of achieving food security and escaping poverty in the study area. The study concluded that among other key determinants, household income, access to credit, and access to extension services increased the farmers’ income and improved their household food security in the study area and recommended targeted income-generating interventions, improved access to productive resources, and food security programmes to alleviate poverty among rural farming households.