ABSTRACT

The study was aimed at assessing the food security status of farm households in Umuahia North, Abia State, Nigeria. The specific objectives were to examine the socioeconomic characteristics of farm households, determine their food security status, examine the determinants of farm household food security and analyze the problems of food security as perceived by the farm households. The objectives were analyzed with primary data obtained using a structured questionnaire distributed to the respondents from period between June — August by me (Researcher). Two-stage random sampling was used to obtain 60 farm households from the study area which formed the sample size for the final analysis. Data analysis was carried out with the use of such statistical tools such as frequency, percentages, mean, ordinary least square regression analysis technique and the food security index of Omonona et al.,(2007) was used to determine the food security status of the farm households. The result showed that 65% of the households are food insecure while 35% are food secure. Also Socio-economic characteristics such as age, sex, household size, level of education of household head, and marital status have significant effect on farm household food security status. The result of the multiple regression analysis on determinants of farm household food security shows that the coefficient of determination (R2) was 0.6805, the likelihood ratio chi-square was significant at 1% which atest to the goodness-of-fit of the estimated model. The significant variables were household size at 1%, farm size at 5%, level of education of household head at 5%, and household income at 1%. Level of education of household head, farm size, and household income had positive relationships with food security while household size had a negative relationship. The result of the multiple response showed that major problems of farm household food security were difficulty in obtaining credit, lack of adequate or proper storage facility, dependence on rain-fed agriculture, food price hikes, lack of labour cost (hired) and lack of technical know-how. From the results obtained in the study some recommendations were made which include educating families regarding family planning since high dependency ratio worsens food security, frequent extension visits to enlighten farmers on best enterprise combination and optimum use of available resources to help improve their productivity, provision of inputs at subsidized rate to farmers to help motivate and improve their productivity.