Food Security Implications of Changes in Food Commodity Prices in Nigeria

Achieving food security represents a top policy priority around the world given that the levels of hunger and malnutrition have remained disturbingly high. Recent years have seen the nutritional status and food security of millions of people being further undermined by high and volatile food prices.Large and unexpected changes in food prices represent an important risk factor and constitute serious threat to food security, especially in developing countries like Nigeria. The study therefore examined the effects of changes in food prices on food security in Nigeria using monthly and annual time series data over the period of 2000 to 2020.The study used Coefficient of Variation (CV) to estimate changes in food prices (food price volatility) while the Autoregressive Distributed lag(ARDL)Model was employed to determine the response of national food security to changes in food prices. The results show that theprices of most food items witnessed a forward leap between the periods 2000-2006 and 2007-2012with the price of rice almost experiencing a threefold rise. In general, changes or volatility in food prices have been decreasing, with the highest volatility of about 6% recorded in the first subperiod (2000-2006)- a value higher than that of the overall period (4.6% in 2000-2020). Food price volatility was shown to have significant effect on per capita food supply variability and average energy supply dietary adequacy, both of which were used as measures of food security in the study.The significant impact of food price volatility on per capita food supply variability suggests the need for government to provide agricultural price support and inventory management strategies to farmers, particularly the smallholders, who account for a large percentage of agricultural production in Nigeria. Government can also adopt a short term policy mix of establishing regionally coordinated food reserves while strengthening social protection measures and coverage in order to secure national food security.