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For the past couple of decades, food insecurity has become a major global phenomenon, which makes zero hunger the second Sustainable Development Goal. Nevertheless, COVID-19 has set in and posed a serious threat to the food system. Thus, there is a need to assess its effect on food security. This study, therefore, examined the effects of COVID-19 on the food security of rural farming households in Enugu State, Nigeria. Data collected from 120 households were analysed using descriptive statistics, the food security index, and logistic regression. The results revealed that the majority (64.5%) of the households with a shortfall index of 0.313 were food insecure, while only 35.5% were food secure with a surplus index of 0.109. The average daily equivalent calorie consumption of adults in food insecure and food secure households was 1552.52 and 2506.88 kcal, respectively. Low food availability (p

Purpose: Fish farmers in Africa often operate on small-scale culture units, primarily due to poor access to funding and low technology adoption. Digital innovation platforms seek to enhance farmers' access to finance, production and farmers' income. However, there is a lack of empirical evidence to support these claims. Therefore, this study investigated the factors influencing fish farmers' access to microcredit from digital innovation platforms and the impact of this microcredit on fish farms' yield and income in Nigeria. Design/methodology/approach: A mixed-methods approach was adopted, and data were gathered from 387 fish farmers through a well-structured questionnaire and focus group discussion. The data were analyzed using probit regression and instrumental variable two-stage least squares regression. Findings: The results revealed that ownership of smartphones, awareness of digital agricultural innovation platforms, farmers' education, income, fish farming as a primary occupation, cooperative society and extension contacts positively influenced farmers' access to microcredit from digital innovation platforms. The age of farmers and household size negatively influenced their access to digital microcredit. Digital microcredit positively and significantly impacted fish farms' yield and farmers' income. Practical implications: Digital microcredit significantly increased fish farm yield and income. Therefore, digital innovation platforms should be encouraged and promoted through the creation of awareness about their ability to solve inadequate financing in agriculture by agricultural extension agents. Originality/value: This study contributes to our understanding of the influencing factors for farmers accessing digital microcredit and how digital microcredit enhances farm yield and income. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Agricultural sector faces series of risks which befall at different frequencies. This study examined the crop farmers' attitude to risks and their management methods in Ogbomoso, Oyo State, Nigeria. Specifically, the study examined the risk attitude of farming households, and analyzed the risk management strategies adopted by farming households in the study area. A four-stage sampling method was adopted to elicit response from selected 150 farming households for this study. The dataset was analyzed with the use of descriptive and inferential statistics. Safety-First-Model (SFM) was employed to analyze the risk attitude among crop farmers. The result revealed that majority of the farming households head was male and married with the mean age of 42 years and a moderately large household size of five persons and inheritance was the prominent means of farmland acquisition. Descriptive statistics showed that high cost of labor input topped the ranking of the risk source in the study followed by high input prices. Lacks of extension advice, low crop prices, were also common. Risk management methods employed to mitigate risk by majority of the farm families was sale of assets followed by income diversification. The SFM result revealed that all the food crop farmers were intermediate risk averse.

Copyright of Ege Üniversitesi Ziraat Fakültesi Dergisi is the property of Ege Universitesi, Ziraat Fakultesi and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Mustafa Kemal University Journal of Agricultural Sciences / Mustafa Kemal Üniversitesi Tarım Bilimleri Dergisi is the property of Mustafa Kemal University, Faculty of Agriculture and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The vulnerable group is susceptible to various economic and social challenges. Understanding their livelihood is a prerequisite to addressing these menaces. Therefore, this study assessed the livelihoods of the vulnerable group and the factors responsible for their diversification in rural southwest Nigeria. Data collected were analysed using descriptive statistics, principal component analysis, the Simpson index, and the Tobit regression model. Results revealed that food crop production, cash crop production, livestock and fishing, forest and forest products, artisanship, remittances, wages and salaries from non-agriculture, and trading were the different means of livelihood among the rural vulnerable group. All the vulnerable groups derived income from farming. Cash crops, food crops, and livestock and fishing contributed 26.1%, 22.7% and 17.9% to household income, respectively. Thus, agriculture contributed the most (66.7%) to their total household income. This is followed by wages and salaries from non-agriculture (12.1%), trading (9.3%), artisanship (8.1%), remittance (2.2%) and forest and forest products (2.0%). The vulnerable group had a low level of livelihood diversification. Educational level, farming experience, total income, access to credit, age, and distance to the market were responsible for their level of livelihood diversification. This calls for government and non-governmental intervention to support the vulnerable group by providing financial assistance (credit or grants), farming inputs, and education to improve their livelihood and enhance their livelihood diversification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Journal of Rural & Community Development is the property of Brandon University, Rural Development Institute and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Minimizing the health dangers associated with consuming inorganic staple food crops due to residues from pesticide and herbicide usage is a reasonable pathway to ensure nutrition security. Therefore, an extensive knowledge of consumers’ interest in organic foods would be a useful complementary strategy to public health interventions. This study examines consumers’ willingness to pay for organic beans in southwest Nigeria. Primary data were collected from 180 shoppers of beans. The data were analysed with descriptive statistics and a logistic regression model. Consumers were willing to pay for organic beans if the premium was not more than ₦601.76 (USD 1.58) for 2 kg of organic beans. The significant factors influencing the consumers’ willingness to pay for organic beans were gender, access to food safety information, acquaintance with organic products, monthly income, and nutritional knowledge of the food planner. Meanwhile, taste/palatability, freshness, appearance, safety, nutritional value, hygiene, and environmental friendliness were highly ranked when buying beans compared to price and convenience. Therefore, any welfare programme involving the introduction of organic beans in Nigeria should ensure that the premium should not be greater than ₦601.76. Also, policies aimed at improving food safety, and nutritional knowledge should be put in place by the government. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The vulnerable group is the most prone to artificial or natural shocks, which could expose them food insecurity. Yet, there exists a dearth of practical information on their dietary diversity and food security status. This study, therefore, assessed the food security status and dietary diversity of the vulnerable group of Fadama III Additional Financing in Nigeria. Primary data collected from 165 respondents were analyzed using descriptive statistics, cost-of-calories, logit model, household dietary diversity score and Tobit model. The results revealed that the vulnerable group was aged smallholder farmers with a low average monthly income of N13,718 (USD 37.13). The majority (88.5%) were food insecure, while only 11.5% met the daily calorie intake of 2,260 kcal per capita. Educational level, income, and value of productive assets positively influenced their food security status, while household size negatively impacted them. Most of the vulnerable group had low dietary diversity, with a range of 0.31 to 0.40, indicating poor nutrition among them. The determinants of dietary diversity among them were gender, educational level, and household size. The most commonly employed food insecurity coping strategies were allowing children to eat first, collecting food from the wild, selling assets to buy food, eating once a day and purchase food on credit. This study suggests policy measures for educating the vulnerable group,providing production assets and better family planning for the vulnerable group to enhance their dietary diversity and food security. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reducing post-harvest losses is a reasonable step towards food security globally. However, the lack of deep knowledge of the causes and determinants of postharvest loss poses a great challenge to strategies for alleviating postharvest loss. This study, therefore, identifies the causes and drivers of postharvest losses in onion, in Nigeria, to alleviate the menace. Data collected from 360 farmers between February and April 2021 were analyzed with descriptive statistics and a multiple regression model. Results showed that the primary causes of postharvest loss were rot, diseases and pests, drying, and bruises. While, poor storage facilities, poor transportation systems, long distances to marketing centers, poor agricultural extension services, and inadequate credit were secondary causes. The driving factors of postharvest losses in onion were extension services (β = -0.1269, p < .05), access to credit (β = -0.1054, p < .05), household size (β = -0.2650, p < .01), age of the farmer (β = 0.0557, p < .05), level of education (β = -1.0500, p < .01), farm size (β = 0.3801, p < .01), distance to market (β = 0.2187, p < .05), output (β = 0.1180, p < .01), and length of storage after harvest (β = 0.0635, p < .05). These findings call for improved transportation systems in agrarian areas, overhauling of extension services, making credit facilities available to farmers at affordable interest rates, and developing efficient post-harvest management technologies by research institutes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Honey marketing is an important off-farm economic activity for women's livelihood and sustenance. Despite this, there is scant information in the literature about the economic performance of women honey marketers. Therefore, this study investigates the economic performance of women marketers, its drivers, and its challenges. Data collected from 120 women honey marketers were analyzed using descriptive statistics, gross profit, net profit, benefit-cost ratio, return on capital invested, operating ratio, marketing margin, and multiple regression. We found that honey marketing was a profitable venture, as indicated by the high gross profit (USD 262.08), net income (USD 257.03), marketing margin (56%), benefit-cost ratio (1.72), and return on capital invested (0.72) per 58.14 liters sold. Honey marketing also had a low operating ratio of 0.57. Thus, women honey marketers performed economically well. The significant factors that enhanced the profitability of honey marketing were education, experience in honey marketing, credit, and membership in an association. While age, purchasing costs, and transportation costs reduced honey marketing profitability. Inadequate capital and credit, price fluctuations, a poor road network, high transportation costs, adulteration, and poor marketing information were the major severe constraints faced in honey marketing. These call for the provision of credit, training, and education to honey marketers by the government to enhance the profitability of the enterprise. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The profit accruing to local rice especially through a well branded package generally depends on the market share of the marketers as it connotes the fastness of the time to sell off the product. The study examined the marketing of branded and unbranded local rice in Niger State, considering a data set obtained through a three stage sampling technique from 150 local rice marketers. Several analyses were conducted on the data using the descriptive statistics, marketing margin and efficiency and the binary logistic regression. A figure of N25, 795.40 and N15, 778.80 were estimated as the returns to branding and unbranded local marketing respectively. Apparently, the branded marketers are more efficient in the marketing of local rice as they have a higher marketing efficiency of 190.61 %. The enterprise is therefore concluded to be profitable and economically efficient. Educational level, marketing experience, access to grant, and cooperative society involvement were the determining factors that significantly influence branding among the local rice marketers. The recommends branding be encouraged among local rice marketers, as they stand to make more profit that their counterparts. Consequently, financial institutions such as agricultural banks should provide access to funds and facilities that would help local marketers cover for their marketing cost. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Income inequality is a global issue affecting all and sundry across the globe in both developed and developing economies. It could result in a high probability of revolution, high rent-seeking policies, a breakdown of social cohesion and a signal of low democracy. Democracy as a form of government was created to ensure that every citizen enjoys the dividends of government. If this is true, democracy should therefore serve to reduce income inequality in the world. The extent to which this is true for Nigeria is yet to get sufficient research interest. Therefore, this study examined the income inequalities in rural Nigeria before and during the democratic era and measured the contributions of different socio-economic factors to income inequality. This study utilized the General Household Survey Panel and the National Consumers Survey data. This study employed the Gini coefficient, theil index, Lorenz curve, and the regression-based inequality decomposition method as techniques of data analysis. The result revealed that income inequality had decreased by 6% from the pre-democratic era to the current democratic era. The proportion of middle-class population has increased by 1.35%. The years of education contributed the most to total inequality (23.5%), the dependency ratio contributed -15.3%, age contributed -0.59%, household size contributed 6.2%, gender of household head contributed 0.03%, and marital status contributed 0.1% to the total income inequality. There is thus a need to gear programmes and policies to boost the education system, empower women and strengthen democratic institutions to ensure income equality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]