1. Title: International Food Security Dialogue 2014
Theme: Enhancing Food Production, Gender Equity and Nutritional
Security in a Changing World
Empirical Evidence: Gender relations and
Household Food Security among UIV
producers in Southwestern Nigeria
Adeolu Ayanwale; Olanike Deji; Abiodun Amusan;
Oyedele Durodoluwa; Titus Alao and Clement
Adebooye

2. Introduction
• Nigeria is the most populous African country, with some
164 million people(2013 statistics).
• Of this, 49% are female comprising some 80.2 million girls
and women.
• 54% of Nigerians still live in poverty and the proportion has
doubled since 1980 (when about 28% were classified as
poor).
• Nigeria’s human development indicators are also worse
than those of comparable lower middle-income countries.

3. Introduction cont’d
• One of the acknowledged pathway out of the present
predicament of poverty prevalence borne out of gender
inequality is the cultivation of Underutilized Indigenous
Vegetable (UIV).
• The UIVs are rural poor women’s escape platform from the
harsh effects of poverty and discrimination.
• Some of these UIVs are gathered from the wild.
• Very few studies have been undertaken on the influence of
gender roles on access to productive resources and food
security especially in southwest Nigeria, hence this study.

4. Objectives of the study
• The broad objective of the study is to examine
influence of gender bias in access to and control
of productive resources among UIV producing
households.
• Specifically the study aims to
- describe socioeconomics features of household
by gender
- investigate access to and control of productive
resources
- examine the food security status of the male and
female headed households

5. Methodology
The study made use of
information from baseline
survey of the CIFSRF
vegetables project using
1785 households made
up of UIV producing and
marketing households,
conventional vegetable
producing households as
well as crop producing
households. Conventional
vegetables and Crop
households were the
counterfactuals.

6. Methodology cont’d
The project is located in the agrarian southwest region of Nigeria which
is about one sixth (~163,000km2 of the total land mass of Nigeria. The
region has three agro-ecological zones – Rain forest, Derived Savanna
and Swamp Forest zones. The study is carried out in the Rain forest and
Derived Savanna Zones
States covered:
•Osun
•Oyo
•Ondo
•Ekiti
72 communities in the 4
States were covered in
the baseline survey.

7. Methodology cont’d
• To examine relationship between gender and household food security we
used household own perception of food security (modified form of
Kassie et al 2013)
• We categorized the samples into female headed and male headed as
reported.
• We used ordered probit regression which enables identification of effects
of inequalities on food security.
• The dependent variable was a three category outcome variable where 1 =
chronic food insecurity; 2 = transitory food insecurity and 3 = break-even
food supply
• Lastly we broke the three categories into two: i.e. Food secure and Food
insecure to estimate the effect of the gender relations.

8. Results

9. Socio-economic
features
FHH are older,
less
experienced in
farming, less
educated, had
fewer
household size
and smaller
farm size

10. Perception on Food
Security
• Food insecurity
for FHH is more
chronic than for
MHH.
• MHH are more
food secure than
FHH both in
transitory sense
also at break even
level.

11. Access to Productive
Resources
• MHH owned more
land, and rented out
almost twice the size
of land of FHH.
• MHH saved more
and had more value of
productive asset than
FHH.
• However, FHH
earned more income
from UIV than MHH

12. Determinants of Chronic
Food Insecurity
•Results show that Membership
of Farm Association, Age, and
closer distance to farm input
reduces chronic food insecurity
for FHH while age reduces food
insecurity for MHH.
•Smaller Household size and more
farming experience reduces
chronic food insecurity for both
FHH and MHH
•MHH needs to broaden their
enterprise base by cultivating
UIV to break through chronic
food insecurity

13. Determinants of
Transitory Food Insecurity
Age and amount saved
reduces transitory food
insecurity for FHH while
only smaller household
size reduces transitory
food insecurity for both
FHH and MHH.
Access to more
livestock and more
farming experience will
also boost food security
for FHH

14. Determinants of Break even Food
Security
To achieve Break even
Food security, FHH
need to engage in
livestock rearing, and
move closer to the
market, while smaller
household size and
savings need to be
encouraged for MHH.

15. Conclusions
• The determinants of food security among FHH and
MHH differ and as such need to be carefully
understood to assess project impact.
• FHH need more liberal access to productive
resources to enable them break even in food
security status
• Closer access to market will go a long way to assist
both FHH and MHH in improving their income and
subsequently, food security status

16. Conclusions cont’d
• Build capacity of both FHH and MHH in value addition to
increase the value of their products and as such enhance
their food security.
• Intervene in marketing activities to chart a proper channel
for UIV to make the most of the opportunities abounding
in UIV enterprise. Especially to avoid male capture.
• Encourage social networking to build the much needed
social capital as well as build capacity
• Encourage the development of savings habit among both
groups to take full advantage of increased income
opportunities and enhance their food security status

17. THANK S FOR YOUR ATTENTION