Title: International Food Security Dialogue 2014

Theme: 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

Methodology

The 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’d

The 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

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