CHAPTER
ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background to the Study
Food security issues have continually attracted the
attention of the world leaders. The discussions of the world food summit of
1996 in Rome (Food and Agricultural Organization, FAO,2014) and that of the
trade ministers from around the world in Doha 2001 (Trueblood and Shapouri,
2002) were centered on world food security matters especially in the least
developed countries of the world. In 1974, the world leaders declared during
the world food conference that ―every man, woman and child has the inalienable
right to be free from hunger and malnutrition in order to develop their
physical and mental faculties‖ (FAO, 2014). As a follow-up to this, the world
food summit of 1996 set the target of eradicating hunger in all countries, with
an immediate view of reducing the number of undernourished people by half not
later than 2015 (FAO, 1999).
Eighteen years after the Rome declaration however
and less than a year to the set target, FAO (2014) stated that about 805
million people were estimated to be chronically undernourished in 2012-14 and
that one out of every nine people in the world still has insufficient food. It was
also noted that most of the undernourished people (791 million) live in
developing countries, includingNigeria. Currently, Nigeria is ranked
thirty-eighth out of 76 countries on the Global Hunger Index (GHI), having a
GHI of 14.7 (International Food Policy Research Institute, IFPRI, 2014). Though
this shows a slight improvement over the 2011 figure of GHI 15.5 (IFPRI, 2011),
it is still outside an acceptable range for the global food security target
(GHI of ≤4.9).However, the GHI report of 2016 that show the countries status
for the year 2015 is of great concern as Nigeria has sunk deeper to having a
GHI of 25.5 a category described by IFPRI (2016)
1
as serious. This is of concern
because the GHI mirrors the food security situation of the nation. It is designed
to comprehensively and track hunger globally and by country and region. The GHI
is an indicator that is calculated based on four important
components/indicators that is linked to correct feeding (food security). The
first of these indicators is undernourishment (the proportion of undernourished
people in as a percentage of the population). This reflects the share of the
population with insufficient caloric intake. The second indicator is child
wasting, which is the proportion of children under the age of five that have
weights that are too low for their heights. The third indicator, child stunting
is based on the proportion of children under the age of five that who suffer
from stunting (low height for their ages). The second and the third indicators of
GHI are reflection of acute and chronic under nutrition. The final indicator
hinges on child mortality of children under the age of five which partially
reflects the fatal synergy of inadequate nutrition and unhealthy environments
(IFPRI, 2016).
In the report of Ibrahim and Oyewole (2010), major
interventions have been initiated by the government of Nigeria aimed at
increasing the domestic food production. This was as a result of the output
drop in the agricultural and food sector following the shift of attention from
agriculture to the oil sector in the early 1970‘s. One of such interventions
include irrigation agriculture. Irrigation farming is the provision of the
right amount of water at the right time for plant growth and development.
Nigeria is characterized by fair to good soil environment but poor and
unreliable rainfall, especially in the arid and semi-arid areasof the
north-western Nigeria (Oriola,2009). According to Dauda, Asiribo, Akinbode,
Saka and Salahu, (2009), irrigation farming has increased in Nigeria in the
recent times and to improve agricultural productivity, especially in areas of
low rainfall of northern Nigeria, irrigation farming has been adopted as best
alternative.
2
They went further to state that
globally; massive investments have been made in the development of irrigation
schemes so as to make the supply of food possible throughout the year.
According to Anon (2008) as cited in Dauda et al.(2009), about 90% of the country‘s
food is produced by small scale farmers cultivating small plots of land and
depend on rainfall rather than irrigation system. Thus, how the country‘s
economy performs depends largely on the performance of the small scale farmers
because they dominate the economy. Therefore, given agricultural prominence in
Nigeria‘s economy, performance of small scale farmers in the sector should be
of great concern to policy makers (Asogwa, Umeh and Penda, 2011) especially
towards being a food secured nation. One important thing to note again is that
these small-scale farmers have needs or goals for going into the farming
business. The basic and most important of such goals are food security and
income generation to satisfy their non-food needs. Resource allocation
therefore is done based on these felt needs.
Helen (2002) as cited in Okwoche and Asogwa, (2012)
reported that food security maintains political stability and ensures peaceful
coexistence among people. It was stated further that food insecurity results in
poor health and hinders optimal performance in children and adults. According
to FAO (2014), food security exists when ―all people, at all times, have
physical, social and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food
which meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active healthy
life‖. Therefore, this study seeks to investigate the level of food security
among rural farming households that practice irrigation in the north-western
Nigeria.
3
1.2 Statement of Problem
With majority of Nigerians residing in rural areas
and about two-thirds engaged in crop and livestock production for their own use
and market sales,yet the country faced with the challenge of meeting the basic
food needs of its population (Adepoju and Adejare, 2013),shows that there is a
food production gap. Food and nutrition security is closely tied to
agricultural productivity. This is because higher production on one‘s own farm
or from one‘s livestock improves the food security status of the household and
vice versa. In some areas in the northern Nigeria, the long period of dry
season does not help the matter in any way as people who depend on rain-fed
farming had to wait till the next rainy season. Irrigation however provides an
opportunity to reduce the wide gap between food production from rain fed
agriculture and the food need of the population. Irrigation contributes to
livelihood improvement through increased income, food security, employment and
poverty reduction (Hussain and Hanjra 2004; Lipton 2003). Therefore, irrigation
can be an indispensable technological intervention to increase household income
(Speelman et al., 2008).
Nigeria is endowed with 74 million hectares of
arable and another 2.5 million of irrigable land, yet the country is still
hungry (Oriola, 2009). Empirical studies have shown that irrigation has a
positive impact on household food security and poverty (Tekema and Oladele,
2011, and Jema and Mohammed, 2013). It was based on that, according to GoM
(2011) in IFPRI (2014), many developing countries affected by drought and
floods promote irrigation interventions to reduce poverty and promote food
security. Despite such intervention, in Nigeria, the presence of chronic hunger
is still manifest.According to West Africa Insight (2010), the northern states
were more at the receiving end of the dwindling food production capacity,
rising food prices, and
4
dependency on food importation
than in the other parts of the country. As noted by Abimbola and Kayode (2013),
a large proportion ofNigeria households are still food insecure despite the
several efforts by successive governments to achieve food security through
setting up of various agricultural development institutions, programmes and
projects. This is at variance with what one will expect if the opportunities
provided by irrigated land in this region were fully maximized. This however
leaves a gap be covered. If farmers with vast land resources (as is available
in northern Nigeria) have the opportunity of food production throughout the
year and yet they are not able to produce enough for their households, there is
a problem of productivity.
North-west Nigeria is known for grain production as
many are known to engage in farming. But at the same time, poverty is
prevalent. Report has it that the region is the poorest (and no doubt, the
hungriest). This is a source of worry calling for investigation of their
farming activities. Most often than not, farmers are known to combine crops on
their farms. This is in an attempt to produce most of the food they need
(because many are small-scale farmers). Food security has a clear nexus with
food production which is in turn determined by the cropping pattern of the
households. If the farming households are working and yet are reported to be
poor, then factors that are linked to productivity such as crop combinations
may be the challenge. It is important to note that the farmers have their
reasons for crop combination- meeting up with household food needs.
Ad de veld (2004), opined that the question of what
to produce is critical and can constitute a problem to a producer. Producers
attempt in answering this question, he further stated, depends on two factors:
the demand (needs of the people) and the resources available. Most small-scale
farming household‘s production is majorly stimulated by the household food needs
and little attention is given to the household resource combination capacity to
produce the enterprise combinations. This research
5
therefore seeks to investigate
the problem of productivity from the perspective of farm optimization. It is to
see if the irrigation farming households are optimal in their choice of
enterprise combinations. The enterprise combinations of households based on
their needs will naturally attempt to include what will make the household to
be food secured but may not necessarily be supported by the household available
resources.
There are growing studies on food insecurity in the
Northern part of Nigeria. Some of them only categorize the households to food
secure and food insecure but few ones focus on describing the various levels of
food insecurity. This is another gap that this study has covered which provided
opportunity to give policy suggestions peculiar to each level of food
insecurity. Policy formulation without disaggregating food security levels
among households will not help. The examination of the effectiveness of food
insecurity copping is sacrosanct and urgent especially among the irrigation
farming households. Also, according to Niragira et al.(2015), there is an optimal farm crop combination mix that
produces enough output to meet the need of household despite all constraints.
Does this really exist among the irrigation farmers in the north-western
Nigeria? This and more questions needed to be answered. In order to investigate
properly, the following more research questions were asked:
