Food security among farming households in Ilorin South Local Government Area

This study therefore, focused on food security among farming households in Ilorin South Local Government Area, Kwara State, Nigeria. Multistage sampling technique was used for this study. In the first stage, ADP zone C was purposively selected. The second stage was the random selection of one Local Government Area from the ADP zone. The third stage was random selection of three villages in the Local Government Area. The fourth stage was the random sampling of fifty (50) respondents in each of the villages. A total number of 150 questionnaire were administered to 150 household heads, out of which 149 respondents were successfully interviewed. Data collected were analyzed using descriptive statistics and logit regression. Data were analyzed to determine the relationship between independent variables (age of household head, years of schooling of household head, household size, weight loss and farm size) and the dependent variable (food security status). The mean age of the household heads was 54 years. This shows that majority of the respondent were still within their productive age. The mean years of schooling was 5 years. This was an indication that an average household head in the study was primary school drop-out. About 78% of the respondents indicated that poor weather condition is the cause of food insecurity. Household with large farm size has propensity to be more food secured than their counterparts with small farm size. Therefore government should encourage farmers to graduate from subsistence agriculture to large scale commercial agriculture.