Effects of Livelihood Diversification on Cassava Farmers Household Food Consumption in Kogi State, Nigeria

Abstract

The study analyzed the effects of livelihood diversification on cassava farmers household food consumption in Kogi State, Nigeria. The objectives include, to identify livelihood activities engaged in, to describe their food consumption pattern, to analyze the effect of livelihood diversification. Primary data was collected with the aid of a well-structured questionnaire from 120 cassava farmers in the study area. Descriptive statistics and ordinary least square regression was employed to analyze the data. The result shows that 60% of the farmers were male, mostly married, with mean age of 49years, the livelihood activities engaged in were mostly processing of farm produce, petty trading and animal rearing, generating an annual income of ₦1,331,075, ₦541,083 and ₦459,083 respectively from the livelihoods. The result on food consumption pattern show that eating monotonous food, eating smaller size of food and skipping meals were the common. While the result on common food classes consumed shows that carbohydrate (yam, cassava, maize, rice), protein (beans and soybeans), fruits and vegetables (spinach and ugu) were the common. The OLS regression result shows that level of education, income from farm, income from livelihood activities and number of livelihood activities engaged in positively significantly affects food consumption at 1%, 5%, 5%, and 10% respectively. While the major constraints faced by farmers in diversifying livelihoods were inadequate capital, high cost of renting business premises and poor access to market. The study recommends increase access to loan facilities to the farmers, building of public business premises to be offered at reduced cost to enable them earn more income that will translate to increase in consumption of protein and vitamin rich food stuffs to combat hunger and increase well-being.