Measuring Household Food Insecurity in Selected Local Government Areas of Lagos and Ibadan, Nigeria

Food security is defined in its most basic form as access to adequate, safe and nutritious food required for healthy and active life by all people at all times. Availability of food and access are two essential determinants of food security. A number of factors such as income, educational level, household sizes are known to affect household food security. Food insecurity, hunger and poverty are closely linked. The level of poverty in Nigeria is high and the percentage of food insecure households in Nigeria was reported to be 18% in 1986 and over 40% in 1998, the level in 2005 is not known. This study was therefore designed to assess the food security status of households in some selected local government areas in two of the large cities (Lagos and Ibadan) in Nigeria. A previous administration of this module suggested that food security is associated with income and the households studied here have steady and definable income. The study therefore was undertaken to describe the food security status of households headed or managed by teachers employed in secondary and primary, public and private schools. The study was descriptive and cross-sectional in design with a sample size of 482 households that were selected using random sampling techniques. The data were collected using an interviewer-administered questionnaire (USDA 18-Question Household Food Security Questionnaire Module). Descriptive statistics such as frequencies, means and standard deviation were employed in the analysis of the data. The results obtained from the study show that the prevalence of food security (26 per cent) in teachers` households in both Lagos and Ibadan was low and the food security status of the teachers` household in Lagos was better (p< 0.05) than of households in Ibadan. The results of the study also identified income status and the educational status of the household head to influence the food security in those households. A household food insecurity of over 70% in this study is unacceptably high.