DETERMINANTS OF FOOD SECURITY LEVEL OF GINGER FARMING HOUSEHOLDS IN KADUNA STATE, NIGERIA

Abstract

Socio-economic factors are known to be important in achieving food security especially among farming households. This paper analyzed the major determinants of the food security level of ginger farming households in Kaduna State, Nigeria. A sample survey of ginger farming households in three Local Government Areas in Kaduna State was conducted. Primary data collected were analyzed using descriptive statistics, principal component analysis and logistic regression. The socio-economic characteristics of the ginger farming households showed that about 77% of the respondents in the sampled areas were of an average age of 40 years. Female headed households were 24% of the sampled households, while 76% were male headed. A total of 66.3% had farming experience of more than 10 years with 92% of the household heads having one level of formal training or the other. More than half of the household sizes were within the range of two to seven persons. The analysis of the food security status of the ginger farming households which encompassed four dimensions of food security showed that 37.8% were food secure while 62.2% were food insecure. The major determinants of the food security level of the ginger farming households in Kaduna State were sex, age, marital status, years of formal education, years of farming experience, household size, secondary occupation, income from primary occupation and farm size. It was concluded that a higher proportion of the ginger farming households were not food secure which could be attributed to their socio-economic factors amongst other factors. The study recommended that social protection interventions that are more nutrition sensitive need to be promoted farming households to eradicate poverty and address food security issues.