ABSTRACT

The study assessed the effect of oil spillage on household food security and livelihoods of selected rural farmers in Bayelsa State, Nigeria. Primary data were used for the study and the data were obtained through a well structured questionnaire administered to the respondents. One hundred and twenty respondents were purposively sampled from the twelve communities in the study area. Findings showed that 62% of the respondents were old farmers and farming activities were dominated by females 50.8% than males 49.2%. 75% of the respondents were highly educated. 53.3%, 35.0% and 11.7% of the respondents were into fishing, civil service and trading respectively. While 88.3% of the respondents were married,45% of the respondents had household size of five persons per household and 39.2% of the respondents had farm size of one hectare each. 35.0% of the respondents earn between N15,500 to NI 8, 500 per month. The double-log regression function was chosen as the lead equation because it is statistically the best fitted functional form than the other models. The result of the simple regression models has its value of R2were significant at 70.7%; 70.6%; 63.2%; 61.5%; 71.7%; and 71.7% changes in food security indices. The linear regression function was chosen as the lead equation because it is statistically the best fitted functional form than other models as its R2were 72.7%; 72.4%; 75.3%; 69.0%; 77.8 and 80.5% changes in livelihood activities. This implies that the null hypothesis which states that there was no significant relationship between oil spillage and household food security and livelihood activities is rejected. Thus, the study concluded that significant relationship existed between oil spillage and household food security and livelihood activities at 1% significant levels respectively. The study, therefore, recommended that compensation should be provided to buffer the economic shock from hazards of oil spillage and farmers should diversify their economic activities for resilience to the consequences of oil spillage