Title: International Food Security Dialogue 2014Theme: Enhancing Food Production, Gender Equity and Nutritional

Security in a Changing World

Empirical Evidence: Gender relations and Household Food Security among UIV

producers in Southwestern Nigeria

Adeolu Ayanwale; Olanike Deji; Abiodun Amusan; Oyedele Durodoluwa; Titus Alao and Clement 

Adebooye

Introduction

• Nigeria is the most populous African country, with some 164 million people(2013 statistics). 

• Of this, 49% are female comprising some 80.2 million girls and women. 

• 54% of Nigerians still live in poverty and the proportion has doubled since 1980 (when about 28% were classified as poor).

• Nigeria’s human development indicators are also worse than those of comparable lower middle-income countries.

Introduction cont’d• One  of  the  acknowledged  pathway  out  of  the  present predicament  of  poverty  prevalence  borne  out  of  gender inequality  is  the  cultivation  of  Underutilized  Indigenous Vegetable (UIV).

• The UIVs are rural poor women’s escape platform from the harsh effects of poverty and discrimination. 

• Some of these UIVs are gathered from the wild. 

• Very few studies have been undertaken on the influence of gender  roles  on  access  to  productive  resources  and  food security especially in southwest Nigeria, hence this study.

Objectives of the study• The broad objective of the study is to examine influence of gender bias in access to and control of productive resources among UIV producing households.

• Specifically the study aims to- describe socioeconomics features of household by gender- investigate access to and control of productive resources- examine the food security status of the male and female headed households 

MethodologyThe  study  made  use  of information from baseline survey  of  the  CIFSRF vegetables  project  using 1785  households  made up  of  UIV  producing  and marketing  households, conventional  vegetable producing  households  as well  as  crop  producing households.  Conventional   vegetables  and  Crop households  were  the counterfactuals.

Methodology cont’dThe project is located in the agrarian southwest region of Nigeria which is about one sixth (~163,000km2 of the total land mass of Nigeria. The region has three agro-ecological zones – Rain forest, Derived Savanna and Swamp Forest zones. The study is carried out in the Rain forest and Derived Savanna Zones

States covered:•Osun•Oyo•Ondo•Ekiti

72 communities in the 4 States were covered in the baseline survey.

Methodology cont’d• To examine relationship between gender and household food security we used

household own perception of food security (modified form of Kassie et al 2013)

• We categorized the samples into female headed and male headed as reported.

• We used ordered probit regression which enables identification of effects of inequalities on food security.

• The dependent variable was a three category outcome variable where 1 = chronic food insecurity; 2 = transitory food insecurity and 3 = break-even food supply

• Lastly we broke the three categories into two: i.e. Food secure and Food insecure to estimate the effect of the gender relations.

Results

Socio-economic features

FHH are older, less experienced in farming, less educated, had fewer household size and smaller farm size

Perception on Food Security

• Food insecurity for FHH is more chronic than for MHH.• MHH are more food secure than FHH both in transitory sense also at break even level.

Access to Productive Resources

• MHH owned more land, and rented out almost twice the size of land of FHH.• MHH saved more and had more value of productive asset than FHH.• However, FHH earned more income from UIV than MHH

Determinants of Chronic Food Insecurity

•Results  show  that  Membership of  Farm  Association,  Age,  and closer  distance  to  farm  input reduces  chronic  food  insecurity for  FHH  while  age  reduces  food insecurity for MHH.

•Smaller Household size and more farming  experience  reduces chronic  food  insecurity  for  both FHH and MHH 

•MHH  needs  to  broaden  their enterprise  base  by  cultivating UIV  to  break  through  chronic food insecurity

Determinants of Transitory Food Insecurity

Age  and  amount  saved reduces  transitory  food insecurity for FHH while only  smaller  household size  reduces  transitory food insecurity for both FHH and MHH.

Access  to  more livestock  and  more farming  experience will also boost food security for FHH

Determinants of Break even Food Security

To achieve Break even Food  security,  FHH need  to  engage  in livestock  rearing,  and move  closer  to  the market,  while  smaller household  size  and savings  need  to  be encouraged for MHH.

Conclusions• The  determinants  of  food  security  among  FHH  and  MHH differ and as such need to be carefully understood to assess project impact.

• FHH  need  more  liberal  access  to  productive  resources  to enable them break even in food security status

• Closer access to market will go a long way to assist both FHH and MHH in improving their income and subsequently, food security status

Conclusions cont’d• Build  capacity of  both  FHH and MHH  in  value addition  to increase  the value of  their products  and as  such enhance their food security.

• Intervene in marketing activities to chart a proper channel for UIV to make the most of  the opportunities abounding in UIV enterprise. Especially to avoid male capture.

• Encourage    social  networking  to  build  the  much  needed social capital as well as build capacity

• Encourage  the  development  of  savings  habit  among both groups  to  take  full  advantage  of  increased  income opportunities and enhance their food security status

THANK S FOR YOUR ATTENTION