Effects of Adoption of Climate Smart Agricultural Practices on Food Insecurity among Rice Farming Households in the Savanna and Rainforest Agro-Ecological Zones in Southwest, Nigeria

Abstract

Climate change is a current threat to food production and food security in Nigeria. Temperature rise and variability in rainfall patterns has had serious consequences on production of food in Southwest Nigeria leading to a decline in food production. Climate Smart Agriculture (CSA) is the way to turn around the situation to more resilience and higher agricultural productivity leading to improved food security status. This study therefore examined the effects of adoption of CSA practices on food insecurity among rice farming households in the Savanna and Rainforest agro-ecological zones (SRAEZs) in Southwest, Nigeria. A multistage sampling procedure was used to select 225 and 352 respondents in the SRAEZs respectively, and primary data collected were analysed using descriptive statistics, household food insecurity access prevalence score and ordered logit regression model. The study revealed that majority of rice-based farming households were male, with an average age of 46 years, married, have small rice farm size with four to five household members.  The results of the household food insecurity access prevalence score classification measure of food security revealed that 39.1% and 33.5% of rice farmers were food secure, 8% and 13.9% were mildly food insecure, 15.1% and 22.2% were moderately food insecure while 37.8% and 30.4% were severely food insecure in the Savanna and the Rainforest agro-ecological zones respectively.The results of the ordered logit regression model shows that in the Savanna agro-ecological zone, early maturing variety, disease resistant variety, green manure, age of respondents, sex of respondents, years in school, household size, credit access, income and tenure system were significant variables and had positive influence on food insecurity status of respondents while in the Rainforest agro-ecological zone early maturing variety, mixed cropping, agro-forestry, sex of respondents, marital status, farm size, access to credit and tenure system had positive influence on food insecurity status of respondents in the study area. This suggests that these significant variables should be an integral part of food security policies in Southwest Nigeria as this will help to ameliorate the food security status of the vulnerable rice-based farming households.