Abstract

Food insecurity is associated with rural households and urban poor who are more vulnerable to high price and limited access to food as a result of low income. There are ways to manage food insecurity among poor rural and urban households. The study assessed the coping strategies to food insecurity in rural households of Ido local Government Area of Oyo state. Multistage sampling procedure was used to select 120 households in the study area. Interview schedule was used to collect information on respondents? socioeconomic and enterprise characteristics, food insecurity and coping strategies. Data were analysed using descriptive tools such as frequency and percentages, while inferential statistics such as Chi-square, Pearson?s Product Moment Correlation were used to test the hypotheses of the study at p=0.05. Majority (76.7%) of the households were male-headed and most households (70.0%) had household sizes of between 5 and 8 persons. Also, 69.2% of the respondents had trading as their secondary occupation. Results also showed that most (63.0%) of the respondents in the study area were food insecure, while majority of them used more of the coping strategies which include consumption of unconventional food (64.2%), reduced the quality of food serve (60.8%), skipping meals (59.2%) and rationing money (58.3%). Respondents? age (r=-0.190), household size (-0.354) and income (r=0.237) were significantly correlated with their households? food security status. Intervention programmes that ensure improvement in households? income can be used to address food insecurity among the respondents in the study area.

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