Urbanization And Agricultural Production: Implications On Household Food Security Among Rural Communities In Enugu State, Nigeria

Urbanization is the increasing number of people that live in urban areas, it predominantly results in physical growth of urban areas be it horizontal or vertical. 

Urbanization a closely linked to modernization: industrialization and the sociological process of rationalization (Urban Life, 2012). 

Urbanization can be describe as a specific condition at a set time i.e. the proportion of total population or area in cities or towns or the term can describe the increase of this proportion overtime. So the term urbanization can represent the level of urban development relative to overall population, or it can represent the rate at which the urban proportion is increasing (Patricia et al., 2008). 

Urbanization is not merely a modern phenomenon but a rapid and historic transformation of him and social roots in a global scale, whereby predominantly urban culture (Urban Life, 2012). 

The last major change in settlement patterns was accumulation of hunter gatherers into villages many years ago. Village culture is characterized by common bloodline and intimate relationships and communal behaviour whereas urban culture is characterized by distant bloodline unfamiliar relations and competitive behaviour (World Urbanization Prospect, 2005). This unprecedented movement of people is forecast to continue and intensify in the next few decades. Mushrooming cities to sizes in comprehensive only century ago (Christopher, 2006). 

The history of urbanization emanate from the development of the earliest cities in Mesopotamia and Egypt until the 18th century, an equilibrium existed between the vast majority of the population who engaged in subsistence agriculture in a rural context and small centres of population in towns where economic activity consist primarily of trade at markets and manufacturers on a small scale (Fuller, 2012). Due to primitive and relatively stagnant state of agriculture throughout this period the ratio of rural to urban population remained at a fixed equilibrium. 

With the onset of agricultural and industrial revolution in the late 18th century this relationship was finally broken and unprecedented growth in urban population took place over the course of the 19th century both through continued migration from the countryside and to tremendous demographic expansion (Fuller, 2012). 

Agriculture, also called farming or husbandry is the cultivation and production of agriculture crops, animals, fungi and other farms, for food, fiber, biofuel, medicinal etc and other products used to sustain and enhance human life (International Labour Organization, 1999). 

Agriculture was the key development in the rise of sedentary human civilization whereby farming of domesticated species created food surplus that nurtured the development of civilizations. 

The history of agriculture dates back thousands of years, and its development has been driven and defined by greatly different climates and technologies. 

However, all farming generally relies on techniques to expand and maintain the lands that are suitable for raising domesticated species; but urbanization came in and utilize the lands meant for agriculture in building houses, industries, school etc and these has poses a serious problem of reducing farm sizes (Ulrich G, et al., 2005). 

Urbanization could also be said to be the development of an area through higher concentration of people, infrastructure and different exchange of functional activities going on; day and night which has no particular season, duration, but has an activities that can attract more developments as the population of people and infrastructure and activities grow perpetually; therefore urbanization triggers industrialization (Population Bulletin 2007/2008). 

However, this definition above tries to bring focus the condition of our natural environment when tampered with the adverse effects to man and his natural and physical environment it also tries to describe urbanization as a state of subduing an environment and overdoing its nature, using houses roads, industries, factories schools, churches, markets, hospitals, offices, airways and other generating factors of development like migration of people from rural to urban areas which constitute its workforce. On the other hand food security is a condition related to the ongoing availability of food concern over food security has existed throughout history (Raj Patel, 2013). According to the food and agriculture organization (FAO, 1996) food security exists when all people at all times have physical and economic access to sufficient safe and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences from an active and healthy life. With rapid urbanization food security especially in the rural household is threatened and most of the agricultural lands in the rural remote area have been utilized and replaced with infrastructure, this limit agricultural activities by reducing farm size leading to food insecurity. Rural-urban migration and subsequently unemployment in the rural, peri-urban and urban areas (Measuring Household Food Security USDA, 2008). Food security is explained by the increase in rural land/labour ratio due to increase in rural-urban migration and the increase in rural non-farm employment, thus understanding the implication of urban growth effects on land use and also rural poverty in developing countries is crucial for any poverty reduction strategy; urbanization leads to industrialization which cause air oil spillage which destroys rural level and crops in them and also aquatic habitats are killed as a result of oil spillage in the rural rivers (Potts, 2009). 

The United Nations projected that half of the world’s population would live in urban areas at the end of 2008, by 2050 it is predicted that 64.1% and 85.9% of the developing and developed world respectively will be urbanized (International Herald Tribune, 2008).