AJAERD Assessing the Food Security Determinants

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Oct 4, 2018 - Global Hunger Report positioned Nigeria at number. 90th out of 105 .... insecure; Xi represent per capita calorie intake of ith household daily, R ...
Journal of Agricultural Economics and Rural Development

AJAERD

Vol. 4(2), pp. 494-500, October, 2018. © www.premierpublishers.org, ISSN: 2167-0477

Research Article

Assessing the Food Security Determinants among Rural Households in Kano, Nigeria *Mukhtar Mustapha1, Roslina B. Kamaruddin2, Shri Dewi3 1,2,3

University Utara Malaysia, School of Economics, Finance and Banking, Sintok 06010, Kedah, Malaysia Food security is a serious challenge in Nigeria as a whole and Kano in particular. Numerous factors combine to make households food insecure, especially the rural households in Kano State. The aim and objective of the study is to indicate the food status of the rural households and identify the major determinants of food security in the region. Using a sample size of 326 rural households from eight local government areas in Kano, this study assessed the food security of rural households through a food security index (FSI). A binary regression was applied to identify the factors that determine food security in rural Kano. The FSI result revealed that 60% of the rural households are food insecure. Binary regression outcome revealed that age of household head, education, involvement in farming, farm size, expenditure, livestock ownership, household size and income of household members were found to be statistically significant factors. It is suggested that household heads, especially males, should curtail the size of the household; women in the study area need to be educated on the basic nutritional requirements and minimum standards of hygiene so that households; food security could be improved.

Key words: food security determinants, rural households, Kano State.

INTRODUCTION The concept of food security in the eyes of the world has taken a different dimension. The Food and Agricultural Organization (2017) projected that the figure of people suffering from hunger in the world was approximated at 815 million, indicating an upward movement from 775 million in 2014 and 777 million in 2015. Out of the total figure, 98% of the hungry people resided in developing countries, while the remaining 2% were located in developed countries. The finding also indicated that 1 in 10 individual in the world is faced with chronic food security challenge. FAO (2017) estimated that 27.4% of the total populations in the African continent were facing a serious and chronic food security issue, which is estimated to be four times more than any other continent in the world. This is an increase from the estimated previous figure of 22.7% by the end of 2016. Sub Saharan Africa has the highest number of hungry individuals in Africa estimated at about 306.7 million and that West Africa accounted for an estimated 12% of the total figure of hungry people in Africa. Among the causes identified were the unpredictable rise in global food price, government continuous neglect in the

agricultural area, conflicts especially in Eastern Africa, climate change, gender inequality and high level of unemployment (FAO, 2012). In early 2017 the United Nations declared that more than 20 million people were at the risk of famine in four countries including Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan and Yemen. Specifically in the Northeastern part of Nigeria, an estimated of 4.5 million people were facing serious food security challenge due to conflict (United Nations Development Programme, 2017a and Von Grebmer et al., 2017). Global Hunger Report positioned Nigeria at number 90th out of 105 countries in the World in 2015 (Von Grebmer et al., 2015), and number 84th out of 118 countries in 2017. The report indicated that the level of food insecure people in the country was 25.4% (46 million people) of the estimated population of 180 million (Von Grebmer et al., 2017). *Corresponding author: Mukhtar M. Mustapha, University Utara Malaysia, School of Economics, Finance and Banking, Sintok 06010, Kedah, Malaysia. Email: [email protected]

Assessing the Food Security Determinants among Rural Households in Kano, Nigeria

The concept of food security was first presented to the World Food Conference in the year 1974 and a definition based on providing adequate and available food at the national level was coined without considering the individual household. However World Bank (1986) modified the definition to include individuals at all level that is characterized by accessibility to adequate and enough food with the required nutritional quality for a healthy as well as dynamic life. Food security is achieved, when there is a present of physical and economic access to a safe, sufficient and nutritious food, that satisfy a healthy and vigorous life (FAO, 1996). However, a recent definition was given by FAO (2015) as a condition where individuals at all level and always possess physical, social as well as economic accessibility to a safe and sufficient as well as nutritional food that converge with people dietary requirement as well as inclination in term of food, which in turn ensure a dynamic life plus healthy life style. Thus food security is much more than the issue of food production and food accessibility. To achieve food security both the necessary and sufficient condition need to be satisfied, these conditions are what we term as food security components, according to Gross et al. (2000) these components include availability, accessibility, utilization and stability of food. Food availability is a mirror image of food supply and is a necessary condition, but not sufficient to guarantee food security either at the national level, household level or even individual level; in the same vain food access is a necessary condition but not sufficient to guarantee enough food and nutritional status (Barrett and Lentz, 2009).

Source: Gross et al., 1996. Researches on food security status have been conducted in various locations of the world including Brazil (FelkerKantor and Wood, 2012); Ethiopia (Bogale, 2012); Ghana (Owusu et al. 2011 and Kuwornu et al. 2011); India (Saxena, 2018); Kenya (Kassie et al, 2014 and Korir et al, 2018); Malaysia (Solaymani, 2018); Pakistan (Asghar and Mohammad, 2013); Punjab (Bashir et al. 2013) and Zimbabwe (Mango et al. 2014). Just like the rest of the world, there are various researches on food security status in Nigeria especially among rural households (Babatunde et al. 2007; Arene and Anyaeji, 2010 and Omonona and Agoi, 2007). Numerous approaches were adopted in

finding the food security status of households ranging from dietary diversity, household income and expenditure approach, food security index and aggregate household food security index etc. The recent studies conducted in Nigeria on rural households’ food security status include: Abu and Soom (2016) their study investigated the analysis of factors affecting food security in Benue State, Nigeria using a food security index and a probit regression model. Result revealed that 53.3% and 62.2% of the rural and urban households were food secure respectively. Major factors affecting households’ food security status include, household head income, family size, farm size and household head age. Oyekale et al. (2017) studied the analysis of rural households food security status in Ogun State, Nigeria, using descriptive analysis and probit regression model, the result indicated that 70.1% of the rural households were food secure using household per capita expenditure. While, Okpokiri et al. (2017) conducted an assessment of food security status of rural households in Abia State, Nigeria, using a food security index and probit regression analysis approach. Results revealed that 36.7% were food secure. Result from probit regression revealed that household head’s farm size; marital status; family size and farm income were the major determinants of food security among the households. Ehebhamen et al. (2017) researched in rural households’ food security and coping strategies adaptation in Edo State, Nigeria using calorie intake estimate, food poverty line, coping strategies index and logit regression. Result revealed that 47.3% of the rural households were found food secure. Household head’s income, education, size of land cultivated, level of livestock ownership, age and family size were the major determinants affecting household food security status in the area. Another study by Arene and Anyaeji (2010) investigated the determinants of food security among households in Nsukka metropolis of Enugu State, Nigeria using household expenditure approach and the binary logistic model. Result revealed that 40% of the households were food secure and that income and age were the major determinants of food security status among the households in the area. From the above literature reviews there is little or no information is known concerning the current food security status of rural households in Kano State, Nigeria, therefore this study fills the gap. Discovering the food security status of the rural households and the factors that influence the food security status are very important to suggest the appropriate policy recommendations. The policies to overcome the food insecure based on the status should not be a blanket policy. Hence, a tailor made policy can be suggested if we manage to identify the food security status and factors affecting them.

Assessing the Food Security Determinants among Rural Households in Kano, Nigeria

METHODOLOGY Data and Sample The study used primary data via a structured questionnaire administered and collected from a sample of 326 rural household heads in Kano, Nigeria. A stratified sampling technique was adopted to select four local government areas each from Northern Kano and Southern Kano (where rural areas were located) using a random selection. Food Security Index (FSI) was used to identify the level of food security among respondents and a Binary Logit Model was used to analyze the factors that influence food security status among the rural households in Kano. Food Security Index In most food security researches, there are two objective approaches used in measuring food security, measuring the gross production and purchase over a period of time incurred by household which gives direction to either increase or decrease of household stocks over a period of time or measuring household consumption recall for individual members in a household, then calorie intake measured from each food item (Maxwell, 1996). The consumption and expenditure report obtained through survey provide the household calorie. The quantity of each food items consumed daily was determined. Food items were converted to grams and calories were obtained using nutrients composition table of common food eaten in Nigeria (appendix 1) adopted by Babatunde et al. (2007) as provided by Oguntona and akinyele, (1995) and USDA (2005). By taking the estimated calorie of the household and dividing it with household adult equivalent after taking into account average consumption factors of household sex and age category (Table 2.1) also considering adjusted household size for adult equivalent table provided by Stefan and Pramila, (1998) in (appendix 2). Per capita intake of the calorie is obtained. A household per capita calorie intake in excess or identical to 2,710 kcal daily is regarded as food secure and any amount shy of the recommended 2,710 kcal the household is regarded as food insecure. Table 1: Recommended Daily Energy Equivalent Scale Age category (yrs) Average energy allowance/day Children less than 6 yrs 1160 Children (6 – 18) yrs 2030 Adults (> 18) yrs 2710 Source: Kuwornu et al., 2013.

intake and Factor equivalent 0.3 0.7 1.0

Calorie intake of individuals in the household is measured by food security index FAO recommended average calorie intake by individuals depending on the location and

country. Global average of calorie intake recommended by FAO daily is 2,780 kcal (FAO, 2016). Nigeria average daily calorie intake is estimated at 2,710 based on FAO food balance sheet (Okwoche and Benjamin, 2012; Muche et al., 2014; Fawole et al., 2016 and Schmidhuber et al., 2018). The index is given as follows: 𝑌𝑖 =

𝑋𝑖 𝑅

………………Equation (1)

Where Yi is food status of household ith assigning the value of (1) representing food secure and (0) representing food insecure; Xi represent per capita calorie intake of ith household daily, R represents per capita daily calorie recommended which in the case of Nigeria is 2,710 kcal. The surplus/shortfall ratio index and head count are given as follows:

1 (f) = M Gi =

m

G i 1

i

……….Equation (2)

yi  R …………Equation (3) R 𝑚

(f) =

1 𝑀



yi  R …Equation (4) R

𝑖=1

Where M represents the number of households classified as insecure in term of food (food secure household); G i is the per capita calorie deficiency (per capita surplus). Surplus or shortfall provided the extent or severity to which household either exceeded or fall short of food security line. Binary Logit Model Depending on the outcome of food security index Yi, the logit model was estimated to ascertain the food security determinants among the rural household, thus the implicit model form is given as follows: Yi = 𝛽Xi+𝜇𝑖 ……….Equation (5) Where Xi is the vector of the explanatory variables, 𝜇𝑖 is the error terms and 𝛽 is the vector of the parameter estimates. Thus explanatory variable included in the model includes: Household head age: Measured in years. The household head age is expected to assume a major role on household food production, which directly affects household food security status. Age impacted on the supply of labour, job opportunity as well as income generating activities. Thus the younger the household head, the stronger and energetic he would be, this can enable him cultivate a vast farmland than the older household head. The expectation of age could be positive and negative.

Assessing the Food Security Determinants among Rural Households in Kano, Nigeria

Gender status of household head: This refers to the sex of household head, measured as (1) for male headed and (0) for female head, expectation here is household headed by male would be food secured then household headed by female, it is generally believed that male household can easily mobilizes labour to the farm then a female counterpart. Household head marital status: Marital status of heads of household could be married, divorced or widow. Household considered married takes the value of (1) while household headed by either divorced or widow are considered unmarried, thus takes the value (0). The expectation is that household headed by a married male; with small size of family and a good source of income could be food secure than a household managed by a female with a large number of dependent individuals and no means of income source. Household head level of Education qualification: Considered as social capital, with positive impact to the food security status of the household, normally through well-informed production and nutritional strategies. Education is a dummy variable, thus the higher the level of education qualification the higher the tendency of household becoming food secure. Primary occupation of household head: Occupation is the source of income to the household heads, occupation ranges from private, public and farming occupation or none at all. Household head with occupation takes the value (1) otherwise takes (0). Thus household head with a good occupation is expected to be food secure, then household head without occupation. Household head total income: Expectation of household head with high earning to be food secure is higher that household with low income earning capacity. Measured in Naira and converted into Dollar equivalent. Household member’s earning: The higher the number of household members earning income within the household the higher the tendency of the household food security status. Members earning measured in Naira and converted to Dollar equivalent. Household head involvement in farming: Either as a primary occupation or otherwise, household involvement in farming has a tendency of increasing household food security status. Thus involvement in farming is expected to increase household food security either through own food production or cash crop production. Household head involved in farming is assigned value (1) otherwise (0). Household head farm size: farmland measured in hectares (ha), the expectation is with large farmland by the household head, the more food secures the household, this is because all things being equal the higher the productivity expected.

Fertilizer application in the farm: More productivity is expected with application of fertilizer by the household head, measured in kilogram (kg). Total monthly expenditure: Household total expenditure in a month was measured in Naira and converted to Dollar equivalent. Household food security status increases with high monthly expenditure on a food item, then with a lower monthly expenditure. Livestock ownership by household head: Household head ownership of livestock could have a positive or negative impact on food security. Livestock could be used during stun; therefore household head with livestock was signed (1) otherwise (0). Household size: This measures the household size, which, include the number of adult equivalent. A household with large size, low income and low farm productivity are expected to be food insecure, a small size household with a high source of income and having high farm productivity is expected to be food secure and it is measured in number. Method of Data Analysis and Model Specification Descriptive statistics and binary regression were used to conduct the analysis. The logit estimated the coefficients; the logistic estimated the odds ratio while the marginal effect (dy/dx) provided the percentage probability of the outcomes. The empirical model is stated below: Yi= 𝛽0 + 𝛽1 𝐻𝐻_𝐴𝑔𝑒 + 𝛽2 𝐻𝐻_𝐺𝑒𝑛𝑑𝑒𝑟 + 𝛽3 𝐻𝐻_𝑀𝑎𝑟𝑖𝑡𝑎𝑙 + 𝛽4 𝐻𝐻_𝑆𝑖𝑧𝑒 + 𝛽5 𝐻𝐻_𝑙𝑣𝑙𝑒𝑑𝑢𝑐 + 𝛽6 𝐻𝐻_𝑃𝑟𝑖𝑜𝑐𝑐 + 𝛽7 𝐻𝐻_𝐸𝑎𝑟𝑛𝑖𝑛𝑔 + 𝛽8 𝐻𝐻_𝑚𝑒𝑚𝑒𝑎𝑟𝑛𝑖𝑛𝑔 + 𝛽9 𝐻𝐻_𝑖𝑛𝑣𝑓𝑎𝑟𝑚 + 𝛽10 𝐻𝐻_𝑓𝑎𝑟𝑚𝑠𝑖𝑧𝑒 + 𝛽11 𝐻𝐻_𝑓𝑒𝑟𝑡𝑖𝑚𝑝 + 𝛽12 𝐻𝐻_𝑒𝑥𝑝 + 𝛽13 𝐻𝐻_𝑙𝑖𝑣𝑒𝑠𝑡𝑐𝑘 + 𝜇𝑖 ……………………………Equation (6)

RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS Socioeconomics of Respondents Table 3 reveals finding on household heads socioeconomic characteristics, Statistical evidence revealed that 88% of the total population were males, 12% females; average age in the study area was 42 years with highest age bracket within (41 – 50) of 37%; majority of the household heads were married about 90%. About 35% of the household heads possess National Certificate Examination/Ordinary National Diploma educational requirement; 11 persons per household was the average household size in the study area with about 37% within the range of (6 – 10) individuals and 33% within the range of (11 – 15) individuals; children under the age of 18 years old accounted for 56% of the total individuals in the population; 47% of the rural household heads were engaged in public sector occupation (government work),

Assessing the Food Security Determinants among Rural Households in Kano, Nigeria

Table 2: Description of the variables in the model Variable Description Measurement Dependent Yi Food Security Status of Household Binary - 1 food secure, 0 otherwise Independent HH_Age Household Head Age Number of years - Continuous HH_Gender Household Head Gender status Dummy - 1 male, 0 otherwise HH_Marital Household Head Marital Status Dummy - 1 married, 0 otherwise HH_Size Household Size Number - Continuous HH_lvleduc Household Head level Education Number of years spent- Continuous HH_PriOcc Household Head Primary Occupation Dummy – 1 educated, 0 otherwise HH_Earning Household Head Earning Naira/Dollar per month HH_memarning Household Members earning Naira/Dollar per month HH_Invlfrming Household Head Involve in farming Dummy - 1 farming, 0 otherwise HH_Farmsize Household Head Farm size Hectare - Continuous HH_Fertimp Household Fertilize improve Dummy -1 if improved, 0 otherwise HH_Expend Household Head Expenditure Naira/Dollar per month HH-Livestockown Household Head Livestock ownership Dummy - 1 livestock, 0 otherwise 𝜇𝑖 represent error terms and 𝛽 is the vector of the parameter estimates. while 41% were in core farming activities, 67% of the rural households engaged in agricultural activities as full time and part-time occupation. In term of household consumption, rice was the most preferred food consumed in the study area, while butter was the least consumed food item. Table 3 also reveals the economic characteristic of the rural household heads, statistical evidence revealed that household monthly average expenditure was N86, 534 (US$283) with 61% of the total household heads within the range of N10, 000 – N100, 000 (US$33 – US$328) monthly expenditure group; household head average monthly income was N126, 120 (US$413) with majority of household earning within the range of N10, 000 – N100, 000 (US$33 –US$328) monthly income accounting for about 61% of the rural household population. Table 3: Socio-economic Profile of Household Heads Factors Pooled (n = 326) % mean Gender Male 88 Female 12 Age (yrs) 42 19 - Below 0 20 - 30 16 31 - 40 30 41 - 50 37 51 - Above 17 Marital Status Single 0 Married 90 Divorced 1 Widowed 9 Educational Qualification

Primary Certificate SSCE/GCE NCE/OND Bsc/HND Msc/PhD Household Size (1 - 5) (6 - 10) (11 - 15) (16 -20) (21 - Above) Children under 18 yrs Children in School Adult above 18 yrs Household Occupation Private Sector Public Sector Farming/Agriculture Household Classification Farming Household Non-Farming Household Household Expenditure (N/$)/Monthly 10, 000 - 100, 000 (US$ 33 - US$ 328) 101, 000 - 200, 000 (US$331 - US$656) 201, 000 - 300, 000 (US$659 - US$984) 301, 000 – Above (US$987 - Above) Household Expenditure (N/$)/Monthly Naira - Average Dollar - Average

A priori/Signs ≥1 or