<#8864#>OLUFUNSO ADEOLA AKINSANMI, WERNER DOPPLER<#8864#>
University of Hohenheim, Department of Agricultural Economics and Social Sciences in the Tropics and Subtropics, Germany
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Increasing population pressure has created the need to bring new land under cultivation. This coupled with, continuous farming and slash and burn system of cultivation have had severe ecological and environmental implications for rural dwellers. The consequences of these, especially in an unstable policy environment, are reflected in household food insecurity and living standard of the families.
Using the farming systems approach, this study characterised farm families based on the criteria for living standard, examined the resource use and resource productivity of farm families and investigates the linkage (interactions) between factors that determine food supply/requirement (food security).
A household survey in four selected regions of Imostate was carried out using standardised questionnaires. The households were initially divided into two clusters based on the availability of family resources. The resulting clusters represent the resource rich (A) and the resource poor (B) which reflects also the different locations of the farm families- those that are in the interior villages and those that are closer to the cities. The population densities of the different study sites are also reflected.
Results show that location, access, ownership and use of resources have an impact on household food security and family living standard. The resource `rich' appear to be more economically successful than the `poor' who are located in high population density areas and are basically crop based. They are more remotely located and so have limited access to infrastructure. It further reflects that family resources such as land, have impact on both food supply and food `requirement'.<#354#>
Keywords: Food supply, food requirement, family living standard, location, policy environment