Folorunso ST*, Momoh OY, Yusuf BE, Silas YG and Ameh AD
The study focused on the assessment of the determinants food security and coping strategies among urban households during COVID-19 pandemic lockdown in Jos, Plateau state, Nigeria. The sampling technique used was multistage sampling technique in the selecting 265 households. A well-structured questionnaire was used in collecting data. Descriptive statistics, FDT Food security index, Coping Strategies Use Index (CSUI) and Z-statistics test were the analytical tools used for this study. The result indicates that 53% of the household heads were males while the mean age of the respondents was 34 years, the mean household size was 4 persons and 68% of the household heads were not members of cooperative association. The households’ minimum and maximum daily calories intake of 679.67 kcal and 2246.79 kcal for food secure and insecure in this study is above the minimum and maximum recommended threshold of 587.58 kilocalories and 2200 kilocalories respectively. COVID-19 pandemic had effect (p<0.001) on the food security status of households. Age, household size, income and amount of credit were the significant determinants of food security status of households. Limited portions at mealtimes, reliance on less preferred food, ate less than they felt they should, times they couldn't afford to eat balanced meals and reliance on only a few kinds of low cost food to feed the children were the highest ranked coping strategies adopted by households during the pandemic lockdown. In conclusion, the understanding of the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown on food security status of households and the adopted coping strategies are important in developing policy measures such as social safety nets, home feeding programmes, the school feeding programme, conditional cash transfers schemes and improved marketing channels that will help mitigate against households falling into food insecurity during similar pandemic in the future.
Published Date: 2023-05-08; Received Date: 2023-03-01
