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Analysis Of Labor Use And Food Security Among Rural Maize Farmers
[A CASE STUDY OF ODEDE LGA, OGUN STATE.]
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1.2 STATEMENT OF PROBLEM
Nigeria
is the most populous country in Africa with an estimate of 150 million
people (Nigerian Population Census, 2006). Approximately 68% 0f this
population consists of women and children with over 70% residing and
securing their lively in the rural areas (Maziya-Dixon et al., 2004).
Agriculture in Nigeria is of notable relevance in the country’s economic
development and growth. It contributes more than 48% of the total
annual GDP, employs about 68% of the labor force, account for the over
70% of the non-oil exports and provided over 80% the food need of the
country (Adegboye, 2004). Despite these notable roles, food insecurity
RANKS top most among the developmental challenges facing Nigeria
(Babatunde et al 2007). Food insecurity has been on the increase in most
rural areas in Nigeria (Oni et al., 2011). In Nigeria food insecurity
has risen from about 18% in 1986 to about 41% in 2004 (Sanusi et al
2006). In fact, food security is considered a measure of poverty in many
societies since it reduces access to food (World Bank, 1991; Nord et
al., 2000; Adeniyi and Ojo, 2013). Therefore, food security of
households will improve if poverty is reduced (Philip et al., 2009;
Aewuyi and Hayatu, 2011).
The recent increase of food prices call for
serious attention, due to challenges and crises facing the globe is
worsening food and other Agricultural products crisis period unheard of
in the last 30 years and the potential of leading to scarcity. That is
why this vital issue has taken the most attention among world leaders,
thereby increasing and agitating the concern for the world’s ability to
feed its 6.8 billion people, to prevent world-wide instability as
reported in most countries like Nigeria (Food and Agricultural
Organization, 2013). As a result, various international organizations
and individual countries embarked on aggressive food security movement
to find a concrete solution to the situation in order to make food
affordable to all.
The Food Security assessment in 2005 proves that
about 750 million people were food unsecured in almost 70 low-income
countries. Furthermore, Asia and other Commonwealth States experienced a
30% decline in the number of those that are hungry. In Latin American
and Caribbean countries has varied a little over time, but there has
been a noticeable trend across the area as a wholly. In spite of the
strong growth in food production, Sub-Saharan Africa is the only region
where hunger has increase in the last ten years. The challenge today is
that high food prices has led to the increase in food insecurity and
widespread food crisis in many developing countries in which Nigeria is
not excluded. However, poor people in developing countries spend about
50-80% of their monthly income on food meet consumers need. Any increase
in food prices will reduce food consumption and increase hunger. In
Nigeria however, the prices of rice, corn and wheat recorded a high
roof-tops recently (FAO, 2013).
Generally, this overall food crisis
has been attributed to a number of factors including climate change,
population growth, poor storage facilities, increased demand for
bio-fuels, failure to improve crop yield, high oil prices resulting to
increased input loss for producers and traders. The structural problems
like under-investment in agriculture and dominance in supply chain of
food and agricultural policies sky rocket prices of food. However,
Studies have revealed that agricultural-based livelihood in rural
Nigeria has a higher level of poverty than other occupational
groups.Rural agriculture is limited to local variations in weather
conditions, and thus expected variations in income levels and thus
access to food respectively (Omonona, 2009). Additionally, Hired and Use
labor is not only applicable where family labor is insufficient. The
much desired transition from small-scale farming to commercial level
production by expansion of production resources definitely requires
outsourcing for additional labor. Blanc et- al. (2008) opines that the
proportion of use labor in total farm labor use in many developing
countries has continued to increase over time which makes this present
study relevant.
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ABSRACT - [ Total Page(s): 1 ]The study examined the Analysis of labor use and food security among rural maize farmers in odede lga, ogun state.More specifically, the study sought to assess the labor use and food security among farmers.The study consist of all farmers in Odeda Local government area, Ogun state, a two -Stage sampling procedure was employed in the selection of the respondents’ maize crop farmers within the study area, twenty-five maize farmers was randomly selected from each of the villages which one hu ... Continue reading---
