Main Article Content
Abstract
Farmers are increasingly exposed to agricultural shocks such as pest invasion, flooding, poor rains, input price increase and fall in output price, which further worsen their food security state and well-being. Adopting strategies to cope with the shocks may enhance farmers’ food security, although studies that link agricultural shocks to food security of households in Nigeria are not abundant. Therefore, this study examines the effects of agricultural shock coping strategies on food security among farming households in Nigeria. Data on 903 farming household heads were extracted from Nigeria’s 2018/2019 general household survey, including; socioeconomic characteristics, agricultural shocks and the coping strategies adopted (assets-based, food adjustment-based, assistance-based, and borrowing-based). Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, Foster-Greer-Thorbecke food security measure and logit regression. Results showed that most households were food insecure (51.8%) and did not adopt any coping strategy (62.50%). The most commonly adopted strategy (17.90%) was assets-based. The assistance-based coping strategies increased the probability of being food secure along with secondary and tertiary education, credit access and cooperative membership. Contrariwise, age and living in the rural sector, North-west and South-south zones decreased the probability of being food secure. Therefore, food security policy for farmers should focus on assistance through social security programmes, encouraging higher education level attainment, improved credit access, cooperative membership and rural living conditions