ASSESSMENT OF FOOD SECURITY AND POVERTY STATUS OF CEREAL CROP FARMERS UNDER FADAMA III+ ADDITIONAL FINANCING (AF) IN NIGER STATE, NIGERIA

ABSTRACT

Food security and poverty among farming households have become an issue of great concern to policy makers and stakeholders in the agricultural sector as its understanding and concepts can help to reduce the recurring storm of poverty, food insecurity in Nigeria and the global community. Hence, the study assessed food security and poverty status of cereal crop farmers under fadama III+ additional financing in Niger State, Nigeria with the aim of providing empirical results which will serve as an important step towards improving the food security status of cereal farmers in the study area. The specific objectives were to describe the socio- economic characteristics of cereal crop farmers, assess the food security and poverty status of cereal  farmers,  identify  the  determinants  of  food  security  and  poverty  status  of  cereal farmers, assess the effects of food security and poverty status on the output of cereal crop farmers, examine the constraints faced by cereal crop farmers in the study area. A three stage sampling technique was used to select a total of 207 respondents in the study area on which structured questionnaire were administered to extract relevant information; data collected were analyzed using both descriptive and inferential statistics such as Foster, Greer and Thorbeeke (FGT) model, logit regression as well as Ordinary Least Square (OLS) regression model. The result of the socio-economic characteristics revealed that most (36.27%)of the cereal crop farmers were within the age range of 31- 40 years, the mean age of respondents was 39 years, majority were males (95.70%) who were married (91.30%) and had majorly tertiary education (55.35%) with a mean household size of 15 people (23.10%). The mean farming experience was 20 years, mean farm size was 4 hecters, while mean income was ₦481, 034.8 per farming cycle. The result also showed that most of the farmers had no extension visits (39.10%), years in cooperative society had (36.70%) with a mean of 6 years. The result also showed that, more than half were not food secure (59.90%), the FGT measure of poverty indicated that (41.50%) of cereal crop farmers were living below poverty line. The poverty  depth  was  (59.73%),  while  the  severity  of  poverty  was  (39.80%).  The  logit regression result showed that income and extension contact were positively and statistically significant at, 10% level of probability. Similarly, years in school, household size and years in cooperative was negatively significance on poverty status of cereal farmers at 5%, 1% and 5% level of probability respectively. Furthermore, effects of food security and poverty on the output of cereal crop farmers were age, education, household size, farm size, farming experience, extension contact, poverty status and food security. The major constrains to cereal production in the study area were problems of road network, flooding, lack of credit facilities, high cost of hired labour, lack of storage facility, inadequate irrigation facility, inadequate supply of inputs, inadequate farm land, poor soil fertility and problem of weed among others. It was therefore, recommended that, non- governmental organizations, farmer groups and cooperative societies should be more involved in the training and education of farmers since they understand their weaknesses and where to complement. Also, storage facilities should be provided to reduce the large quantity of wastes recorded yearly, this will go a long way in reducing poverty levels and sustaining food security status.

CHAPTER ONE

1.0      INTRODUCTION

1.1       Background of the Study

Food security has been defined as physical and economic access, at all times to adequate food for an active and healthy life, which includes access to nutritionally safe foods and an assured ability to acquire foods in socially satisfactory ways (Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO, 2012). Food security focuses primarily on food availability and to some degree the price stability of basic food stuffs at the international and national levels (Clay, 2002; FAO, 2005). Food security exists when all people, at all times have physical, social and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food which meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life (Idachaba, 2006; Duffuor, 2011; FAO, 2012).

According to FAO (2010), food security underlies the consumption, at any time, by all members of the household (men, women, boys and girls) of an alimentation adequate in quality and quantity, for an active healthy life. The concept of food security includes both physical and economic access to address people‟s needs and preferences. In that way, a household should have the possibility to consider all its members at all times. FAO (2013) enlisted three main steps towards  achieving  food  security  such  as;  food  availability,  food  accessibility,  and  food utilization. Firstly, food must be available in sufficient quantities, continuously and consistently. The concept refers to stocks and production in a given area, and the capacity to import food from else where. It implies self-sufficiency of a household, of the community, and of the nation as a whole.

Secondly, people must be able to regularly acquire food, through home and local production or importation. Food access suggests the availability of sufficient resources to obtain nutritious food, without resorting to emergency aid or other coping strategies. Food access refers equally to sharing practices within the household. Hence, household food access is the ability to obtain sufficient food of guaranteed quality and quantity to meet nutritional requirements of all household members. Here, the food should be at right place at the right time and people should have economic freedom or purchasing power to buy adequate and nutritious food.

Lastly, there must be absolute utilization of available food (these include storage, processing, preservation, cooking, and consumption) and also it must be accessible to farm households without waste. Sarah (2013) explained that the inability of the poor to have access to needed food can be attributed to low income and inadequate food production. Food insecurity on the other hand, implies a temporary short fall of adequate food for a proper diet, as a long term food shortage called chronic food insecurity (Benjamin and Joseph, 2012).

In  Nigeria,  despite  agricultural  policies  and  strategies,  the  population  of  food  insecure households in Nigeria was about 18% in 1986 (Babatunde et al., 2017). This increased to 40% in 2012 and higher in the subsequent years (Enete et al., 2018). Despite the fact that agriculture remains a key component of the Nigerian economy, contributing about 37% of GDP and employing about 70% of the active population, it receives less than 10% of the annual budgetary allocations (Adebayo and Okunneye, 2015). As a result, the agricultural sector has significantly under performed given its vast potential (Machethe, 2016). Nigerian agriculture has failed to supply  sufficient  food  both  in  quantity  and  quality  to  feed  the  constantly  ever  growing population. Thus, the level of food insecurity in Nigeria has continued to increase steadily since the 1980s (Babatunde et al., 2017).

Food  insecurity  rose  from  about  19%  in  2012  to  about  41%  in  2016;  with  an  estimated population of 180 million,this implies that over 81 million Nigerians are food insecure. That is, are either hungry, under nourished, or starving. This is not surprising given that about 52% of the population  live  under  the  poverty  line.  In  2012,  the  National  Bureau  of  Statistics  (NBS) published a report stating that most of the poor live in the rural areas where the incidence of poverty is highest. According to NBS report (2012), the North-West and North-East geo-political zones  have  the  highest  poverty  rates  in  the  country  with  77.4  percent  and  69.1  percent respectively being poor. These are followed by the North Central with 59.5percent of the population, the South-West zone is the lowest population of the poor with 49.8 percent, while South  east  had  47.5  percent  and  South-south  55.5  percent.  Furthermore,  60.9  percent  of Nigerians were estimated as living in absolute poverty in 2011 as against 54.7 percent in 2004 (NBS, 2012).

Meanwhile, raising agricultural productivity, reducing food insecurity and poverty should be an important policy goal for concerned government since agriculture plays a major role in the economy of many developing countries. It is a significant source of nourishment for citizens and a means of livelihood for the most vulnerable members of this country (Adewuyi, 2014).

Increasing agricultural productivity requires one or more of the following; an increase in input with output increasing proportionately more than inputs; an increase in output while inputs remain the same; a decrease in both inputs and output with input decreasing more; or decreasing input while output remains the same (Adewuyi, 2014; Oni et al., 2016). Increasing inputs in order to expand output involves raising both the quality and quantity of inputs, examples of which will include the mechanization of agricultural processes, use of high yielding varieties of crop  seeds  or  planting  materials,  use  of  fertilizers,  irrigation  in  areas  where  rain  fall  is inadequate, and the use of agro chemicals such as herbicides and pesticides.

Cereals are those members of the grass family, the Poeceace grown for their characteristic fruit, the caryopsis, which have been the most important sources of world‟s food for the last 10,000 years (Oredipe, 2015). Wheat and barley are the oldest cultivated cereals. Their cultivation started in the fertile crescent of Mesopotamia some 10,000 years ago, this region  now include parts of Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran (Oredipe, 2015). The major cereal crops in Nigeria are rice, maize, sorghum, wheat, pearl, millet and fonio millet with rice ranking as the sixth major crop in terms of the land area devoted to cereal production. Sorghum account for 50% of the total cereal production and occupies about 45% of the total land area devoted to cereal production in Nigeria (National Extension Agricultural Research and Liaison Station (NEARLS, 2014).

1.2       Statement of the Research Problem

Ensuring food security is one of the greatest problems confronting the country today. It is a complicated  phenomenon  in  which  those  facing  food  insecurity  will  have  to  decide  for themselves how better they can attain food security while keeping in mind their social and economic constraints (Usman, 2018). The concept of food security ensures that household members are able to obtain adequate food either through own production or purchase from the market.  Therefore,  combating  food  insecurity  entails  an  increasing  access  to  productive resources such as land, inputs as well as advisory services.

The  International  Food  Policy Research  Institute  (IFPRI,  2010)  reported  that  cereals  crops dominated Nigerian crop production, and Nigeria is the Africa„s leading producer of rice, corn, wheat, and millet. However, productivity is below potential yields with the farmer yields of most crops less than half of the potential yield due to increased population pressure. High demand for land for non-agricultural uses has led to decrease in available agricultural land resulting in low food production, low income, high food insecurity and high poverty prevalence. (Adeolu, et al., 2011; Alimi and Ayanwale, 2006; Igbenaese and Okojie-Okoedo, 2010).

Poverty  is  wide  spread  and  high  in  rural  areas,  where  Nigeria„s poverty  incidence  was 17.7 million poor people in 1980, 34.7 million  people in 1985,  and not minding the drop between   1985   and   1992   (due   to   the   implementation   of   the   structural   adjustment programme),  about  39  million  people  were  poor  in  1992.  In  1996,  about  67  million people  were  poor  and  despite  the  drop  in  incidence  between  1996  and  2004,  about  69 million people were poor in 2004 (Omonona, 2009; Diao et al., 2019). The poverty incidence increased to 69% (or 112.5 million Nigerians) in 2010. According to NBS (2016), both the quantitative and qualitative measurements of poverty attest to the growing incidence and depth of poverty in the country, with almost 100 million people living on less than a $1 (£0.63) a day with majorityof people living in the rural areas and (NBS, 2016). Food insecurity remains a fundamental  challenge  in  Nigeria.  The  Food  and  AgricultureOrganization  (2014)  enlisted Nigeria among countries faced with serious food insecurity problems.

National Fadama development programme I, II and III has been implemented to boost the cereal crop sector in Nigeria. There is, however, little to commensurate on the resource output. The Fadama project was established by the Nigerian government, in collaboration with the World Bank and the African Development Bank in 1996 and 2001. Some of the problems of these two projects were that Fadama I operated a top bottom approach but it contributed in the reduction of crop prices and storage losses, while Fadama II was challenged by poor monitoring and documentation  which  provided  the  basis  for  poor  accountability,  lack  of  transparency  and tracking of project planning and implementation. But the low level of monitoring of Fadama sub-projects has been a persistent problem to the successful delivery of Fadama development projects in Nigeria (Oredipe, 2015). It is against these back drops that the study seeks to provide answers to the following research questions:

i.          What are the socio – economic characteristics of cereal crop farmers who participated in fadamaIII+ the study area?

ii.        What are the food security and poverty status of the respondents?

iii.       What are the socio-economic determinants of food security status of cereal farmers?

iv.       What are the socio-economic determinants of poverty status of cereal farmers?

v.         What is the effect of food security and poverty status on the  output of cereal crop farmers‟ underFadama III + AF in the study area?

vi.       What are the constraints faced by Fadama III + AF farmers in the study area?

1.3       Aim and Objectives of the Study

The aim of this study is to assess the food security and poverty status of cereal crop farmers under Fadama III + additional financing in Niger State, Nigeria.

The specific objectives are to:

i.         describe the socio-economic characteristics of cereal crop farmers who participated in fadama III+ AF in the study area;

ii.        assess the food security and poverty status of the farmers;

iii.        estimate the socio-economic determinants of food security status of cereal crop farmers under Fadama III + AF in the study area;

iv.       estimate the socio-economic determinants of poverty status of cereal crop farmers;

v.         determine the effect of food security and poverty status on the output of cereal crop farmers under Fadama III + AF in the study area, and

vi.       examine constraints faced by cereal crops farmers under Fadama III + AF in the study area.

1.4       Hypotheses of the Study

The following null hypotheses were tested in the course of the study:

H01: There is no significant relationship between the selected socio–economic characteristics (age, education, family size, farm size, gender, and income) of cereal crop farmers and their food security and poverty status.

H02: There is no significant effect of food security and poverty status on the output of the cereal crop farmers in the study area.

1.5       Justification of the Study

Considering the rate at which the country‟s population increases, there is need to match the population increase with food production. Hence, increase in food production is one way to realizing this dream. Cereal crops form the main meal of majority of Nigerian people, both rich and poor. Ensuring the abundance of cereal crops production indirectly implies curtailing food insecurity and reducing poverty to the barest minimum. Which directly implies a bold step towards achieving food security and self- sufficiency objective of the nation.

This study should improve the database of Fadama development project for further studies and provide the necessary information on benefiting farmers in the programme with a view to improving and modifying the programme design, planning and implementation strategies, thus accelerating the achievement of the set objectives of the programme. Quite a huge amount of money has been expended both by the World Bank, the Federal Government of Nigeria and State Governments to ensure that farmers are empowered to efficiently utilize their resources with the aim  of improving  the farmers‟ income,  productivity and reducing poverty among the  rural dwellers. The result of the study shall go a long way in bringing to the fore whether the huge amount of money expended on this project is justified.

It would also assist the government and other stake holders in the achievement of self-sufficiency in cereal crop production which is a road map to feeding the nation‟s growing population. The findings of the study would be useful in providing empirical results of the factors influencing Fadama III+ Additional Financing on the output of beneficiaries in Niger State. It should also guide policy makers in formulating and evaluating existing policies on cereal crops production which shall also in  a way sensitize the  Fadama project  on further adjustments  in view to ensuring that their objectives are achieved.

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