Vulnerability to Food Poverty in Nigeria

Economists have in recent times recognized that a household's sense of well-being depends not just on its average income or expenditure but on the risk it faces as well. Vulnerability is thus a very crucial issue in welfare analysis. This study estimated and analysed the magnitude of vulnerability to food poverty based on data from the 2004 Nigeria Living Standard Survey (NLSS) obtained from the National Bureau of Statistics. The three-step Feasible Generalized Least Squares (3FGLS) procedure was employed in estimating the extent of vulnerability to food poverty in Nigeria. The results show that 61.68 per cent of Nigerians were vulnerable to food poverty; the incidence of vulnerability to food poverty varied significantly across zones and between the urban and rural sectors; and was highest in the South West zone (68.32 per cent) and lowest in North East zone (50.19 per cent); and it is more in the urban sector (64.61 per cent) than in the rural (59.37 per cent). It is evident that the magnitude of vulnerability to food poverty is very high. Thus, policies that will enhance people's access to food should be adopted and targeted transfers of subsidized basic food items should be used to sufficiently reduce vulnerability to food poverty in the country.