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Abstract
The study examined factors affecting household food security status among rural and
urban farming households of Benue State, Nigeria. Purposive and simple random sampling
techniques were employed to obtain a sample of 180 respondents, 90 households head each
from rural and urban areas. Data were collected through structured questionnaire and
analyzed using descriptive statistics, Food Security Index, Surplus/Food Insecurity Gap,
Factor analysis and Probit model. Using calorie intake method, the result revealed that
53.3% and 62.2% of rural and urban households respectively were food secured. The rural
and urban food secure households exceeded the recommended calorie intake by 39% and
42% respectively, while the rural and urban food insecure households fell short of
recommended calorie by 24% and 26% respectively. It was also found that income of
households head (p<0.10), rural households size (p<0.01), and farm size (p<0.10) had a
positive impact on household food security. On the other hand, age of household head
(p<0.05) and urban household size (p<0.10) had a negative relationship with household
food security. Constraints such as lack of access to credits, inadequate land availability, and
poverty, infertility of the soil, lack of non-farm income generating activities, storage and
processing problems were identified as some of the factors militating against the
achievement of food security in the study area. It was recommended that credit be provided
to farming households by government to reduce the constraint of not being able to access
credit facilities, the agricultural policies which aimed at promoting farmers access to land
and improving farm household productivity be encouraged and that farmers be provided
with informal education through extension services on nutritional awareness and non-farm
income generating activities.