ANALYSIS OF FACTORS AFFECTING FOOD SECURITY IN RURAL AND URBAN FARMING HOUSEHOLDS OF BENUE STATE, NIGERIA

The study examined factors affecting household food security status among rural and urban farming households of Benue State, Nigeria. Purposive and simple random sampling techniques were employed to obtain a sample of 180 respondents, 90 households head each from rural and urban areas. Data were collected through structured questionnaire and analyzed using descriptive statistics, Food Security Index, Surplus/Food Insecurity Gap, Factor analysis and Probit model. Using calorie intake method, the result revealed that 53.3% and 62.2% of rural and urban households respectively were food secured. The rural and urban food secure households exceeded the recommended calorie intake by 39% and 42% respectively, while the rural and urban food insecure households fell short of recommended calorie by 24% and 26% respectively. It was also found that income of households head (p<0.10), rural households size (p<0.01), and farm size (p<0.10) had a positive impact on household food security. On the other hand, age of household head (p<0.05) and urban household size (p<0.10) had a negative relationship with household food security. Constraints such as lack of access to credits, inadequate land availability, and poverty, infertility of the soil, lack of non-farm income generating activities, storage and processing problems were identified as some of the factors militating against the achievement of food security in the study area. It was recommended that credit be provided to farming households by government to reduce the constraint of not being able to access credit facilities, the agricultural policies which aimed at promoting farmers access to land and improving farm household productivity be encouraged and that farmers be provided with informal education through extension services on nutritional awareness and non-farm income generating activities.