Food insecurity and coping strategies in South-West Nigeria

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Food SecurityThe Science, Sociology and Economicsof Food Production and Access to Food ISSN 1876-4517 Food Sec.DOI 10.1007/s12571-013-0264-x

Food insecurity and coping strategies inSouth-West Nigeria

Dare Akerele, Siaka Momoh, AdebayoB. Aromolaran, Clara R. B. Oguntona &Adebayo Musediku Shittu

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ORIGINAL PAPER

Food insecurity and coping strategies in South-West Nigeria

Dare Akerele & Siaka Momoh & Adebayo B. Aromolaran &

Clara R. B. Oguntona & Adebayo Musediku Shittu

Received: 22 January 2013 /Accepted: 3 April 2013# Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht and International Society for Plant Pathology 2013

Abstract Food insecurity and coping strategies in Ado-Ekiti, Ekiti State in the south-western part of Nigeria werestudied by means of a multistage sampling technique. Datawere collected from 80 households, consisting of 321 mem-bers, with the aid of a well-structured questionnaire, andwere analysed using a Food Insecurity Index. The overallincidence of food insecurity was 58.8 % while the depth offood insecurity, expressed as the average percent increase incalories required to meet the recommended daily require-ment, was 19.5 %. Thus, the study confirmed the wide-spread existence of household food insecurity but withmild severity. Food insecurity indices declined with higherlevels of income and educational attainment but increasedwith household size and number of dependants. Incidence offood insecurity was slightly higher among female headedthan male headed households but the depth and severitywere lower. Eating less expensive and less preferred foodand reducing portion sizes were the three most commoncoping strategies for combating short-term food shortages.Policies that would enhance income earning capacity ofhousehold members and their access to higher education,well-focused gender specific interventions and promotion ofbackyard farming are advocated.

Keywords Food insecurity . Coping strategies . Foodshortages . Food insecurity index . Nigeria

Introduction

Although substantial efforts have been made to increase theproduction and quality of global food supplies and to im-prove the nutritional status of all people, food insecurity isstill widespread, especially among developing nations. Over960 million people in the world are hungry and undernour-ished (FAO 2011). The majority of these people are found indeveloping countries, most especially in Asia and Africa,and many die of hunger-related diseases (StandingCommittee on Nutrition (SCN), 2006). According toAfrican Food Security Briefs (AFSB 2011), approximatelyone-third of the people in sub-Saharan Africa are undernour-ished. Attainment of sustainable economic development inany nation remains an aspiration without well-nourished andhealthy people. Human beings are reservoirs of resourceswhose mental, physical and financial contributions to thesocial and economic development of society are inextricablylinked to adequate nutrition. Food insecure people constitutea pool of potential that is capable of transforming a nationinto a developed state but this may not occur if their health iscompromised by nutritional deficiencies.

As many as 70 % of Nigerians live on less than 1 USDollar per day, their lives plagued by actual hunger andmalnutrition or threats of their occurrence (Dada 2011).Food insecurity among rural and low income urban house-holds is 71 % and 79 %, respectively (Orewa and Iyangbe2010), and such households have limited economic andphysical capacity to sustain their present level of well-being or cope with economic shocks (IFPRI 2008). Cropproduction in Nigeria is rain-fed and therefore vulnerable todrought. It is still being carried out extensively on a smallscale using primitive farm implements. Lack of bulk storageand inefficient food processing facilities also constitute ma-jor bottlenecks (Corporate Nigeria 2011). Consequently,gross food shortages occur, especially during the lean sea-sons. Where food is available, most households are unable

D. Akerele (*) : S. Momoh :A. M. ShittuDepartment of Agricultural Economics and Farm Management,Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta, Nigeriae-mail: [email protected]

A. B. AromolaranToluwani Special Needs Centre, Abeokuta, Nigeria

C. R. B. OguntonaDepartment of Nutrition and Dietetics, College of Food Scienceand Human Ecology, Federal University of Agriculture,Abeokuta, Nigeria

Food Sec.DOI 10.1007/s12571-013-0264-x

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to access enough due to its high price and their inadequateincome (Obayelu 2010). There are also issues of rural–urbandrift, particularly of young energetic people, who go to thecities in search of a better standard of living, leaving farmingin the hands of an ageing population who are less energeticand productive (Okafor and Udeh 2012; AfricanDevelopment Bank Group 2013).

Another factor is that the agricultural industry suffersfrom over dependence on the oil industry as high earningsfrom foreign exchange increase the exchange rate. As aresult, domestic agricultural exports (food and cash crops)become less competitive in the international markets, andimported foods become cheaper. Currently, Nigeria is a netimporter of food to the extent of over 3 billion US Dollarsper annum (Corporate Nigeria 2011), despite a vast endow-ment of rich arable land. The latter, together with human andother natural resources, have the potential to guarantee thecountry’s food self-sufficiency.

Governments of Nigeria over the years have evolveddiverse strategies to express their concerns in dealing withthe vital issue of food insecurity and under-nutrition in thenation. These include, among others, the NationalAccelerated Food Production, Operation Feed the Nation,Agricultural Development Programme, StructuralAdjustment Programme, National Poverty EradicationProgramme (NAPEP), National Economic Empowermentand Development Strategy (NEEDS), and the MillenniumDevelopment Goals (MDG). However, these programmeshave recorded few successes, with the lacklustre perfor-mances attributed largely to poor targeting of interventions(Akinyele 2009). Better targeting and desirable outcomes offood insecurity programmes can be achieved with properidentification of the most vulnerable households and betterunderstanding of the extent and quality of food insecuritywhich have been experienced by the people (Maharjan andKhatri-Chhetri 2006; Akinyele 2009). According to Clover(2003), actions to deal with food insecurity issues havecontinued to fail as a result of faulty analysis and conse-quently, faulty actions. Although some studies have ana-lyzed household food insecurity in Nigeria (Enilolobo andAromolaran 2004; Idrisa et al. 2008; Orewa and Iyangbe2009), more detailed analyses at the household level are stillrequired in order to provide information for the design offood-oriented programmes that would improve householdfood consumption and nutrition (Akinyele 2009).

As noted by IFPRI (2008), Nigeria will be unable toachieve the Millennium Development Goals of reducingpoverty, hunger, and malnutrition without a clear under-standing of the defining characteristics of the poor andmalnourished in the country. Those concerned with devel-opment in developing countries have begun to recognizethe critical role of household socio-economic characteris-tics as resource endowments that can be manipulated to

enhance household welfare. Some of the social welfareand other food-related interventions in the country haveemployed household socioeconomic characteristics as pa-rameters for identifying beneficiaries and mechanisms ofprogramme targeting (Odurukwe et al. 2006; Holmes et al.2012). Hence, a food insecurity study that takes intoaccount the socioeconomic characteristics of householdsis worthwhile in order to gain a better understanding ofthe relationship between socioeconomic factors and foodinsecurity and to help in proper identification of the mostvulnerable groups. Interventions based on such analysesare likely to accomplish more than a moderate reductionin food insecurity (Maharjan and Khatri-Chhetri 2006).Advancing understanding of the types of coping strategiesadopted by households to tackle problems of food short-ages could also shed more light on the implications offood insecurity on households’ welfare and other ways ofpromoting household food security. This study, therefore,seeks to evaluate the incidence, depth and severity ofhousehold food insecurity by determining household so-cioeconomic factors and coping strategies with a view toproviding suggestions for better targeting of food andnutrition policies.

Methodology

Study area

The study was carried out in Ado-Ekiti, Ekiti State in thesouth-western part of Nigeria. This state was selected be-cause it ranks high in terms of poverty levels compared toother states in the region (NBS 2005). The state has a totalpopulation of 2,384,212 (National Population Commission(NPC) 2006) and lies between latitude 7°15′ and 8°07′ northof the equator and longitude 4° 47′ and 5° 45′east of theGreenwich meridian (EKCPRA 2002). It has a mean annualtemperature of about 27 °C and a mean annual rainfall ofabout 1400 mm. Vegetation is mainly rainforest and thearable land is rich in organic material and minerals, makingthe state one of the major producer of food crops such asrice, cassava, yam, and maize (EKCPRA 2002). The studyarea has hydromorphic lowland areas suitable for farmingduring the dry season. It is inhabited predominantly by theYoruba ethnic group and a few other ethnic groups, whospeak the same language with minor dialect differences(EKCPRA 2002).

Data collection and sampling procedure

The study adopted a multistage sampling technique in orderto select 80 households in the study area. The first stageinvolved random selection of five out of the thirteen polit-ical wards in the study area, from which a random selection

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of two streets from each political ward was selected inthe second stage, giving a total of 10 streets. In the thirdstage, eight houses were sampled from each of the 10streets by means of a systematic random sampling tech-nique, making a total of 80 houses. Finally, one house-hold, available for interview, was selected from each ofthe houses selected in the third stage, giving a totalsample size of 80 households. The definition of house-holds in this study links to members who share the sameconsumption baskets. There were a total of 321 membersin the selected households. Data were collected over aperiod of two months, mainly in January and February2008.1 Each household was visited four times (twice permonth) during the first and third week of the month. Thedata collected included types and quantities of food con-sumed by each member of the household, socioeconomiccharacteristics of households, expenditure patterns, in-come, and food insecurity coping strategies. Food con-sumption data was collected using the 24-h dietary recallapproach (Conway et al. 2004; Rankin et al. 2010). The24-h dietary recall method is a popular one usuallyemployed by nutritionists and others working on foodconsumption and nutrition both in developed and devel-oping countries. Researchers who have employed theapproach in food consumption and nutrition studies inNigeria include, among others Oguntona et al. (1998)and Ayinde et al. (2006). As a way of obtaining fairlyaccurate data, we pre-weighed different kinds of fooditems and presented them to household members. Eachmember of a household was requested to supply infor-mation regarding the type and quantity of food itemsconsumed the day before the interview. Membersassessed the quantity of food eaten on the basis of thepre-weighed food commodities. Where a particular house-hold member was not around during the interview, andfor children who were unable to give reliable informa-tion, their mothers, or other adult household memberswho served their meals, supplied their food consumptioninformation. We converted the food records into standardmeasures using the pre-weighed foods.

Method of data analysis

The data collected were analyzed using descriptive statistics,nutrient estimation and a food insecurity index.

Nutrient estimation

For this study, the mean calorie intake from the four roundsof visits was computed and used for analyses. The foodcalorie conversion factors used were obtained from the foodcomposition tables developed for Nigeria by Oguntona andAkinyele (1995) and the calorie intake was estimatedaccording to equation 1.

Di ¼Pm

s¼1 AisBs

Vð1Þ

Di = mean daily calorie intake level of a householdmember i; Ais = total weight (g) of food commoditiesconsumed, using the 24-h dietary recall method, in all ofthe four visits to individual i; Bs = standardized food energycontent per 100 g of food commodity s; V = number of visits(V = 4); and m = total number of food commodities con-sumed by household member i.

Given that the household composition differs in terms ofage of members, gender and household size, the estimatedaverage calorie intake of each member of household wasconverted to its adult equivalent (AE) by dividing the actual(average) calorie intake by the appropriate FAO adult equiv-alent conversion factors as cited by the National Bureau ofStatistic (NBS) 2005 and Claro et al. (2010). Adult equiva-lent calorie intake of members of a particular householdwere summed and divided by the corresponding householdsize to obtain the mean daily per capita adult equivalentcalorie intake for that household, the value of which is usedin the food insecurity index formula specified in equation 2.

Assessment of food insecurity levels

The food insecurity2 index formula for the study givenbelow derives from the Foster, Greer and Thorbecke(FGT) poverty index, developed in 1984. This has beenmodified to measure food insecurity and has been used byseveral workers (Aromolaran 2000; Ayinde et al. 2006;Orewa and Iyangbe 2009).

Fa ¼ 1

Nk

Xp

i¼1

FL� yiFL

� �a

; for yi < FL ð2Þ

Where Fα = food insecurity index (FISI) of a household.When α=0, it is a measure of food insecurity incidence. Itmeasures the percentage of households with per capita adultequivalent calorie below the minimum requirement. Whenα=1, it measures the depth of food insecurity, indicatinghow far a household is from the threshold of food insecurityand consequently the additional food necessary to be food

1 The months of data collection were in the dry-season and a periodwhen food stocks are not at their lowest. This is not the main harvest(surplus) season (September to November) nor the hungry cum earlyharvest season (May to August) (FEWSNET 2012). While results maybe affected by seasons, they are unlikely to differ radically as theywould in the cases of extreme surplus and hungry seasons. The resultsmay “roughly represent” an average result of the two extreme seasons.

2 We have only defined food insecurity in terms of inadequate con-sumption of calories. There are other aspects of food insecurity notcovered by this study.

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secure. When α=2, it measures the “severity of food inse-curity”3; p = total number of households with daily percapita adult equivalent calorie intake below the food inse-curity line; Nk = total number of households. For this study,Nk changes depending on whether a subset of the sample orthe entire sample was used for analysis. Analysis was firstcarried out on different subsets of the sample involvinghouseholds with different socioeconomic profiles and lateron the entire sample (see Table 1); FL = the food insecurityline which is the minimum recommended level of calorieintake. The food insecurity line used for the householdanalysis is 2550 kcal adult equivalent daily intake (Claroet al. 2010); and yi = mean daily per capita adult equivalentcalorie intake for household i.

Using coping strategies as indicator of food insecurity

The coping strategies used derive from Maxwell (1995) andhave also been used by Enilolobo and Aromolaran (2004)and Orewa and Iyangbe (2009). A range of short-term foodinsecurity coping mechanisms was compiled and presentedto the household head who was asked to rank five of themfrom the most frequently used (score 5) to the least (score 1).An advantage of this method is that it allows differenthouseholds to assign rank scores differently even to a par-ticular coping strategy. The total (rank) scores for each ofthe strategy given as:

Rh ¼X

LhdTd ð3Þ

Where Rh = total rank scores for coping strategy h; Lhd isthe total number of household assigning rank score d toadopted strategy h; Td represents the assigned rank scores;Td=1, 2, 3, 4, 5.

Only six relevant coping strategies are presented in thestudy to keep the discussion simple. Strategies with highertotal rank scores denote the most frequently used strategiesand can provide information about short-term food-basedbehavioural practices and the seriousness of household foodinsecurity (Maxwell 1995). However, that they are frequent-ly used does not necessarily imply they are the most suc-cessful or suitable strategies for dealing with food shortages.

Results and discussion

Results showed that 58.80 % of the households were foodinsecure and would require an average of about 440 kcal toreach the food security level of 2550 kcal. The aggregatefood insecurity incidence (0.588) is lower than 0.75 reportedby Orewa and Iyangbe (2010) among low income house-holds in the southern part of Nigeria but close to 0.57(57.0 %) reported by Oluyole et al. (2009) in south-westNigeria. Notwithstanding, appropriate measures should beput in place to improve the situation. In comparison withother countries, the food insecurity incidence (0.588) is alsolower than the 0.74 (74 %) reported for rural Nepal

3 This shows how serious food insecurity is among the food insecurehousehold groups. The severity index differs from the food insecuritydepth index in that it assigns different weights to the food insecuritystatus of each of the households with the weight itself equalling thevalue (size) of the food insecurity depth; thus more weight is given tothe most food insecure household. Drawing from Foster et al. (2010),the severity index provides information about the distribution of foodinsecurity in a population by concentrating more on the most affected(worse hit) household groups. It is measured as the average of thesquare of the food insecurity depth of each household. Although theseverity index has an ordinal value, it has no intuitive interpretation onits own, except it is compared with the severity index of othergroup(s)/population(s) (Gibson and Olivia 2002).

Table 1 Food insecurity levels among households

Household Classification F0 F1 F2 p Nk

Income quartile

First 0.700 0.243 0.088 14 20

Second 0.650 0.217 0.075 13 20

Third 0.550 0.141 0.039 11 20

Fourth 0.450 0.118 0.031 9 20

(b) Educational level

Primary 0.800 0.254 0.097 4 5

Secondary 0.595 0.210 0.083 22 37

Tertiary 0.553 0.180 0.057 21 38

(c) Gender

Male 0.584 0.215 0.075 38 65

Female 0.600 0.178 0.056 9 15

(d) Household size

1–3 0.595 0.185 0.062 18 33

4–6 0.600 0.201 0.082 24 40

7–9 0.604 0.291 0.125 5 7

(e) Dependants

No dependant 0.333 0.098 0.040 5 15

1–3 0.625 0.203 0.104 30 48

4–6 0.688 0.256 0.082 11 16

7–9 1.000 0.294 0.087 1 1

(f) Major occupational of household head

Salary/wage earners 0.610 0.195 0.073 25 41

Non salary/wage earners 0.564 0.195 0.075 22 39

(g) Asset quartile

First 0.600 0.214 0.087 12 20

Second 0.550 0.149 0.052 11 20

Third 0.700 0.169 0.045 14 20

Fourth 0.500 0.116 0.037 10 20

(g) Whole household 0.588 0.195 0.072 47 80

Field survey, 2008

F0 Food insecurity incidence, F1 Food insecurity depth/gap, F2 Se-verity of food insecurity, p number of food insecure households, Nk

number of households in the household classification being considered

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(Maharjan and Khatri-Chhetri 2006) but higher than 0.321(32.1 %) found in Yemen (Ecker et al. 2010).

There was a slightly higher incidence of food insecurityamong female headed households with a value of 0.600compare with male headed households where the valuewas 0.584. This is in agreement with the findings ofOmojimite (2011) but contradicts those of Iyangbe andOrewa (2009) who used a different approach. However,the corresponding depth and severity appear lower in femalecompared with male headed households. Lower values ofdepth and severity of food insecurity could mean that femaleheaded households distribute food more fairly amonghousehold members or they have a smaller household sizewhich may imply higher calorie intake by household mem-bers (Quisumbing and McClafferty 2006).

Depth and severity of food insecurity reduced with higherlevels of education of the household head, suggesting thateducation is a critical factor in household food security. Thisfinding is consistent with those of Idrisa et al. (2008) whoalso found household food insecurity became less as educa-tional levels increased in the northern part of Nigeria.According to Benin and Mugarura (2006), education leadsto improvement in the stock of human capital, which, inturn, impacts positively on labour productivity and wages.Improved wages implies increased purchasing power topurchase enough food for the household and may have afurther positive effect through a better appreciation of nutri-tional values. The study also revealed that household foodinsecurity reduced with higher levels of household income.This signifies the crucial role of income in attainment ofhousehold food security. Other studies with results thatsupport this finding include those of Idrisa et al. (2008)and Omojimite (2011).

Incidence, depth and severity of household food insecu-rity increased with greater household size and number ofdependants, as was also found by Idrisa et al. (2008).Incidence of food insecurity was also greater among house-holds headed by persons whose major source of income wassalary/wages compared with households headed by non-

salary/wage earners. This observation is contrary to thefindings of Orewa and Iyangbe (2010). However, their studywas conducted among low income urban households. Thisand other factors may explain the difference between thetwo studies, such as low salary/wages among rural workersin this study (perhaps caused by holding on for too long tounstable jobs with low remuneration).

Food insecurity also reduced generally with the level ofhousehold assets except for households in the third quartile.A possible explanation for this could be that households inthat category deliberately decided to go hungry for a shortperiod of time in order to acquire some assets. A furtherlook at the profiles of food insecurity by asset quartilereveals that though the incidence and depth of food insecu-rity among households in the second quartile appears lowercompared to those in the third quartile, the severity of foodinsecurity in the second quartile appears relatively higher. Apossible reason might be that the majority of food insecurehouseholds in the second quartile have a lower level ofcalorie consumption than the food insecure householdgroups in the third quartile. This underscores why the mea-sure of “severity of food insecurity” should be employedalongside food insecurity incidence and depth indices whileevaluating food insecurity status among households of dif-ferent socioeconomic profiles, especially when unequal ac-cess to food among the food insecure groups/populations isof concern.

Prevailing food insecurity coping strategies

Coping strategies in terms of food security are referred to asfall-back mechanisms devised by people to deal with ashort-term insufficiency of food. The prevailing householdfood insecurity coping strategies are presented in Table 2 interms of rank scores. Based on the total rank scores, themost prevalent strategy is eating less expensive and lesspreferred food. These findings are in line with those ofMaxwell (1995) who found the two strategies the mostcommon among population groups where food insecurity

Table 2 Rank scores of food insecurity coping strategies among households

Rank 1st×5 2nd×4 3rd×3 4th×2 5th×1 Total scoresCoping strategies

Eating less expensive and less preferred food 5 48 4 4 2 239

Reducing consumption or limiting portion size 16 29 3 – 10 215

Skipping meals within a day – 6 15 9 3 90

Selling labour power 8 – 7 – – 61

Backyard farming – – – 12 13 37

Borrowing food or money to buy food – – 7 – 3 24

Computed from field survey data, 2008

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was least severe. This coping strategy had a total score of239. Close to this was reduction in the quantity of foodconsumed with a total score of 215. Other prevailing strat-egies in descending order are skipping one meal within aday, selling labour, backyard farming and borrowing moneyto buy food, with scores of 90, 61, 37 and 24 respectively(Table 2). Coping strategies such as skipping of meals andeating less expensive and less preferred foods can beregarded as “negative mechanisms” as they do not actuallyalleviate food insecurity but secure the continued existenceof people under compromised living conditions (Adekoya2009; Orewa and Iyangbe 2010).

Conclusion and recommendations

This study analyzed household food insecurity levels byhousehold socioeconomic characteristics with emphasis oncalorie insufficiency. It also appraised household’s strategiesfor coping with food insecurity. The study established evi-dence of widespread food insecurity but with mild severity.Food insecurity reduced with higher household income andhigher educational attainment of household head but in-creased with larger household size and numbers of depen-dants. Incidence of food insecurity appeared marginallyhigher among female headed households than male headedhouseholds but the depth and severity appeared lower.Eating less expensive and usually less preferred food andreduction of food portion sizes of household members arethe two most common food insecurity coping mechanisms.Households also engaged in backyard farming in order totackle the food security problem.

The implications of the findings are that improved in-come, higher educational attainment, reduction in the num-ber of dependants and efforts geared towards femaleempowerment, family planning strategies and encourage-ment of backyard farming are critical for reducing foodinsecurity. Though policy recommendations should beapproached with caution due to the limited sample size,the results can provide groundwork for policy advocacy orthe review of existing programmes. The study therefore,recommends policies that would improve household in-come, e.g. cash transfer programmes for poor householdsand strategies that can enhance the income generating abil-ities of members, e.g. employment regeneration, vocationaland business training. The existing universal basic educationscheme for children should be strengthened and efforts tomake higher education more accessible should be encour-aged as long-term strategies for promoting food security.Sensitively guided gender-oriented interventions should al-so be pursued in order to promote household food security.The study also recommends encouragement of backyardfarming for the improvement of household food security.

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Dare Akerele is a lecturer at theDepartment of Agricultural Eco-nomics and Farm Management,Federal University of Agriculture,Abeokuta, Nigeria. He is current-ly on a PhD programme at theDepartment of Food Economicsand Marketing, University ofReading, UK. His main interestis in food and nutrition security,and development issues.

Siaka Momoh is a Professor inthe Department of AgriculturalEconomics and Farm Manage-ment, Federal University of Ag-riculture, Abeokuta, Nigeria. Heholds a Ph.D in Farm Manage-ment from the University of Ag-riculture, Godollo, Hungary. Hisresearch activities are centred onEconomic Policies for Sustain-able Agricultural Marketing andForest Resource Economics. Heis a consultant to the FederalGovernment of Nigeria on sev-eral agricultural projects.

Adebayo B. Aromolaran is aRetired Professor of Economet-rics of the Federal University ofAgriculture, Abeokuta, Nigeria.He was directly involved in thesupervision of the MSc disserta-tion from which this manuscriptwas generated. He was a YaleUniversity scholar from 2001 to2005 and the winner of the UmaLele award for the best contribut-ed paper on gender at the triennialconference of the InternationalAssociation of Agricultural Eco-nomics, Beijing China, August

16–23, 2009. He is presently the Executive Director of Toluwani SpecialNeeds Centre, Abeokuta; a non-profit organization based in Nigeria. Hehas contributed immensely to food policy and development issues na-tionally and internationally

Food insecurity and coping strategies in South-West Nigeria

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Clara R. B. Oguntona is a pro-fessor of Community Nutrition atthe Dept. of Nutrition and Dietet-ics, College of Food Science andHuman Ecology of the FederalUniversi ty of Agricul ture ,Abeokuta. She holds a B. Sc inClinical Biochemistry from theUniversity of Rosario in her na-tive Argentina, aM. Sc. in HumanBiology from LoughboroughUniversity in the UK and a PhDfrom the University of Ibadan inNigeria. She has been Head ofDepartment and Deputy Dean of

the College. She has 34 years of experience as a University lecturer andmany scientific publications in recognised journals.

Adebayo Musediku Shittu is aSenior Lecturer at the Departmentof Agricultural Economics andFarm Management, Federal Uni-versity of Agriculture, Abeokuta,Nigeria. Degrees earned includeB. Agric. (Hons) AgriculturalEconomics and Farm Manage-ment (Ogun), MSc AgriculturalEconomics (Ibadan), PhD Agri-cultural Economics (Abeokuta).Research interests include appliedmicroeconomic analysis, ruraleconomics, and agricultural pro-ductivity & efficiency analysis.

He has to his credit over 30 articles published in local and internationaljournals.

D. Akerele et al.

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