Assessing the Household Food Insecurity Status and Coping Strategies in Abeokuta, Ogun State, Nigeria
 
Akinbule Oluwafunke Opeyemi; MSc ^*1, Okekhian Kindness Lovely; BSc¹ &
Omidiran Adebukola Tolulope; PhD²

 

² Food Sciences and Technology Department, Federal University of Agriculture Abeokuta, Nigeria.
 

 
Introduction

Food insecurity remains a public health problem in many developing countries. Despite several efforts made to increase the food availability and accessibility to meet the need of growing population worldwide, food insecurity is still very high in many developing countries, particularly Nigeria, owing to the rise of food prices, low income levels, and devaluation in the economy of many affected countries (Anugwa and Agwu, 2019, Okolo and Obidigbo, 2015, Titus and Adetokunbo, 2007) Several factors were associated with food insecurity, which include conflicts, natural disasters, urbanisation (reducing access to farm land), and increased population growth rate were associated with the increased food insecurity      (Anugwa and Agwu, 2019, Ayantoye et al., 2011). Certain antecedent factors have been revealed to contribute significantly to food insecurity (Farzana et al., 2017), but many of households have no control over them.
Food insecurity experienced by many households makes them to devise strategies to cope with the prevailing situation in order to prevent the household from hunger, particularly the children in the household and mitigate against its effects of their nutritional status (Jones et al., 2013). Studies revealed that households adopt either food, non-food CSs, or a combination of both such as meal skipping, reducing the quality or quantity of food served, adjusting food budgets, or even obtaining food loans among others (Ballard et al., 2013, Farzana et al., 2017, Gupta et al., 2015). This results in reliance on cheaper, less healthy, and calorie dense foods. in order to quench hunger and increase the frequency of eating. This may put household members at higher risk of unhealthy eating habits and stress-induced metabolic responses, all of which can predispose them to obesity and its associated outcomes, increase the prevalence of malnutrition, particularly in children (Dinour et al., 2007).
Although diverse studies assessed various household food insecurity status and the various coping strategy applied at the household and national levels. However, most studies conducted in this part of the country used household food insecurity assessing scale as a major tool for assessing food insecurity.  However, the Food and Agriculture Organisation recommended use of Food insecurity experience scale, which is a new tool based on the direct interview to measure people’s ability to access foods as well as the severity of food insecurity. Previous findings focused on the prevalence food insecurity rather than the severity. However, a recent report on the state of food security and nutrition in the world  (FAO et al., 2019). emphasized the importance of assessing not only the prevalence of severe food insecurity status, but also the mild and moderate food insecurity status. This notes that the food insecurity is higher than hunger and those who fall under the mild and moderate food insecurity, if not taken care of, may develop severe food insecurity. As a result, the prevalence of severe food insecurity increases. Information is scarce on the severity of food insecurity status and CSs adopted by these households using the appropriate tool in this region. These data can be useful for the government and stakeholders to assess the existing and set new policy for the food insecurity programs, design programs related to the food security, and inform interventions that can address food insecurity among this population. Therefore, this study assessed the household food insecurity status and CSs in Abeokuta, Ogun State, Nigeria. 
Materials and Methods
Study design and participants: A cross-sectional descriptive study was conducted among 250 households in 20 communities in Odeda local government area, Abeokuta using simple random sampling technique.
Measurements: An interviewer-administered semi-structured questionnaire was used to collect the study information on the socio-demographic area. Household food insecurity status was assessed using food insecurity experience scale questionnaire (Ballard et al., 2013), which consists of eighteen question categorized according to the level of food insecurity domains. These domains include uncertainty about food, inadequate food quality and quantity, each domain represents specific level of food insecurity that progresses from mild and moderate to severe levels. The coping strategy adopted by households was assessed using the coping strategy index questionnaires that contained 12 experienced-based questions arranged orderly from the least severe to the most severe based on the mostly frequently practised behaviours in the last 30 days. The number of utilized CSs was calculated and the CSs were categorised as food compromization, financial compromization, as well as both food and financial compromization CSs.
Data analysis: Data were presented in frequencies and percentages. Chi-square was applied to determine the association between CSs category and household food insecurity status, as well as socio-demographic data and food insecurity status of households. Statistical significance was set at p-value < 0.05. All statistical analysis was carried out using statistical package for social sciences version 20.
Ethical considerations: This study was approved by the Ethical Research Committee FUNAAB / NTD / COLFHEC /ERC / 023 / 12) of the Nutrition and Dietetics Department, College of Food Science and Human Ecology, Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta, Nigeria.
Results
Table 1 shows the socio-demographic and food insecurity status of the households. Majority (84.0%) of the household heads were male and about one-third fell within the age range of 39-59 years. About half (48.4%) of the households had total monthly income ranging from 50,000 to 99,000 naira monthly. In addition, most households had access to drinkable water, credit facilities, information and market while less than half of them had access to land, farm, and paved roads. More than three-quarter of the respondents were food insecure, while 26.4% were mildly food insecure, 35.6% were moderately food insecure, and 22.4% were severely food insecure. A significant association was found between the gender of household head (P = 0.01), age-range of household head (P = 0.03), household size
(P = 0.01), occupation of household head (P = 0.001), income of the household head (P < 0.001), and household food insecurity status. Furthermore, household access to land (P < 0.001), access to farm (P = 0.04), access to paved road (P = 0.01), access to information (P = 0.04), and access to market (P = 0.01) had significant association with the household food insecurity status (Table 1).
Figure 1 illustrates the CSs utilized by households within the last thirty days.  The most common CSs included the compromising food quantity, food quality, and finances. The majority of respondents took loan to buy food (99.6%), sold sheep and goat (100%), ate once a day (93.6%), ate rice without stew (94.4%), sold hen and turkey (99.6%), took food loan (88.4%), took money from savings (89.2%), and reduced food quantity (100%) within the last 10 days. More than half of them reduced food quality (63.2%), skipped meal for children (55.2%), ate twice a day (52.8%), and collected wild vegetables (59.6%) within the last ten days. About 20% of the households ate twice daily, 24.4% collected wild vegetables, 26.4% reduced food quality in the last 11-20 days while about 10.0% reduced their food quality, and more than a quarter of the respondents ate twice daily and skipped meal for children in the last 21-30 days.
Figure 2 shows the number of CSs adopted by households within the last 30 days. Almost two-thirds (62.6%) of the households adopted at least five CSs and more than one-quarter adopted three to four CSs in the last 30 days.
Figure 3 illustrates the household food insecurity status stratified by categories of the CSs. CSs were categorised as food compromization, financial as well as both food and financial compromization. Among the households who were food secured, food compromization (19.4%) and financial compromization (12.5%) were the most adopted prevalent CSs. Among the households who were mildly food insecure, food compromization (34.8%) as well as both food and financial compromization (13.9%) were most prevalent. Among the households who were moderately food insecure financial compromization
(43.8%) as well as both food and financial compromization (40.5%) were the most prevalent CSs adopted. Among the households who were severely food insecure, financial (37.5%) as well as both food and financial compromization (36.7%) were more prevalent. Financial as well as both food and financial compromization increased with severity of the food insecurity. A significant association exists between the respondents’ adopted CSs categories and food insecurity status (P = 0.00).