Survey data on land tenure and food security among farming households in northern Nigeria.

This dataset presents data collected from the households' survey in Northern Nigeria to examine land tenure and property rights among smallholder rice farmers and the influence it has on household food security. Data collection was by personal interviews of adult members of the farmers' households, focusing on the households' socio-economics, United States Department of Agriculture'- 18 Household Food Security questions for households with children, land titling status and land tenure type on farmland cultivated during the 2016/17 farming season. The data were collected from 475 rice farmers selected by multistage sampling across 84 rice-growing communities, seven States and the three geopolitical zones in northern Nigeria. Household food security was assessed within the framework of the United States Department of Agriculture' HFS Survey Module. Land Tenure and Property Rights (LTPRs) assessment was in terms of the type (source) and registration of titles to farmlands. The hypothesis that guided the cross-sectional survey conducted to generate these data is that insecure land tenure and property rights are important drivers of food insecurity.