Empirical Analysis of Food Security Status of Farming Households in Benue State, Nigeria.

Abstract

In the most recent times, no human right has been so frequently and spectacularly violated as the right to food. In the light of the global food crisis, this paper analyzed the food security status of farming households in Benue State, " the Food Basket " of Nigeria. The paper employed a stage-wise random sampling technique to obtain 180 households. Descriptive statistics were used to assess the socio-economic characteristics of the households and the Food Security Index was used to measure the household food security status. Using the FAO benchmark of 2500kcal per capita per day; households were profiled into food secure and food insecure where 36.67% were food secure while 63.33% were food insecure. The shortfall or surplus index (P) indicated that, the food secure households exceeded the benchmark by 33.80% while the food insecure categories fell short by 29.60%. The paper recommends that, government and all stakeholders should take advantage of existing structures such as the Fadama Development Project to improve the means of livelihood of the populace, thus improving their food security status; enhance nutritional education for effective home management and balance dietary intake rather than " full the stomach syndrome " to achieve the Millennium Development Goal of reducing to half poverty and hunger incidence by the year 2015.