Abstract:
The study examines the dynamics of food loss/waste behaviour and its determinants in the food security nexus among farming households in South western Nigeria. Literature contended that food waste/loss is one of the main sustainability issues urgently needed to be contained. Hence, understanding the dynamics between food loss/waste and food security can enhanced the micro-policy and factors stimulating food waste reduction at household level. Four rural/semi-urban local government areas (LGAs) were selected from each state out of 3 states, given a total of twelve LGAs. A combination of cluster and systematic random sampling was used to select 40 households from each of the selected twelve rural/semi-urban communities. Thus, a total of 160 households per state and 480 households in all were selected during the first data collection. On visiting the same households for second data collection, only 300 households’ data were useful for data analysis. Panel primary data were adopted and they were collected in two periods of late and early rain, respectively, over a period of 10 months. Primary data were collected with the aid of a well-structured well-tested questionnaire/ interview schedules and were administered on farming-households in the area of study where needed information/data were collected to address the study objectives. Transition of food-security households to food-insecurity indicated a differential of 4.05%, and the transition of food-security to food-insecurity a differential of 9.15%. During the agricultural-harvest season more households moved to food-security status (16%), while off-season, food-insecurity status was 25.3%. The probability of households escaping food-security is 0.23, and the probability of households entering food-insecurity is 0.37. Study revealed that during agricultural harvest more food loss/waste were recorded (35.5%). Prominent among the food loss/waste are fruit and vegetables (29%; 41%), tuber crops incurred 33%. This outcome was higher by 25.5% as compared during non-agricultural harvest. These dynamics indicated that during the agricultural harvest more food waste/loss were recorded. Past studies of this nature only captured the food waste and loss independently, but the present study looked at the factors influencing food loss/waste and food security nexus using a snapshot study. Hence, this study brought in innovation by examining the dynamics of food loss/waste and food security in two periods. Therefore, the question this study asks is: can a farm-household enhanced food loss/waste reduction over a particular period of time and vice-versa? Although, this study was a pilot just to get insight into food loss/waste issue and the influence of food security status and agricultural harvest.
