Analysis of the Determinants of Food and Nutrition Security in Nigeria (1981 - 2020).

Food security has become a national priority for the country considering that a vast majority of its 198.1 million population is food insecure. Food and nutrition insecurity is prevalent in Nigeria despite its favourable agroecological endowments. It has a total landmass of 92.4 million hectares, out of which only about 32 million hectares or 34.63 percent are under cultivation. Nigeria, therefore, lacks both the capacity and capability to cater for the food and nutrition requirements of its teeming population. This study was carried to analyse the determinants of food and nutrition security in Nigeria. Secondary data retrieved from FAO STAT and POLITY IV was used for the research. Descriptive statistics was used to examine the trend in aggregate food production and g raphical evidence of indicators of food and nutrition security in Nigeria while inferential statistics using Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) technique was used to evaluate the determinants of food and nutrition security on food supply. Graphica l analysis of different indicators of food and nutrition security showed that there has been a rise in the number of undernourished people in Nigeria and the prevalence of undernourishment graphical result showed that slow growth and common childhood infections would last longer and become more frequent and serious with the prevalence of undernourishment in Nigeria standing at over 12%. The graphical result of the per capita food production food and nutrition security indicator in Nigeria together with per capita food variability showed a very high level of variability and thus unpredictability in both per capita food production and supply in Nigeria. Graphical analysis of the indicator, average dietary energy supply analysed together with the prevalence of undernourishment showed that undernourishment is mainly due to insufficiency of the food supply in Nigeria. The GDP per capita based on PPP for Nigeria in international dollar food and nutrition security indicator when graphically analysed showed that alth ough Nigeria’s GDP per capita based on PPP was $5,066 as at 2019, it is unequally distributed among the poor and the rich in Nigeria as the cost of a healthy diet exceeds the international poverty line (established at USD 1.90 purchasing power parity (PPP) per person per day) making it unaffordable for the poor. Results of Autoregressive Distributed Lags analysis show that agricultural land which is the proxy for rainfall and Time trend ( T) w ere found to have (LARL) , ( LR) significant effect on food supply. The findings of this study amongst other things show that if the food production is not enhanced and boosted in Nigeria, it would have grave consequences on the nation’s food and nutrition security in Nigeria. Therefore, the study recommended that government, private sector and civil society organizations should invest and support in resilient agricultural development programmes to boost food production in Nigeria . It was also proposed that there was the need for improving water management in the agriculture sector which is particularly critical to enhance crop, livestock production and other forms of agriculture. The study also recommended that also be a formulation of a workable lan d tenure system in Nig eria as it would should allow for easy access to land for agricultural use without infringing on the wellbeing of others