Improving food security of farming households in Nigeria: Does broiler outgrowers' program make any difference?

The purpose of this research was to examine the impact of outgrowers' programs on the food security of smallholder poultry farming households in Osun State. Using multi-stage sampling technique, a structured questionnaire was designed to collect information from beneficiaries and non-beneficiaries of outgrowers' programs in the study area. Descriptive statistics, food security index, and Heckman's selection model were used to analyze the data. The results revealed that outgrowers and non-outgrowers were on the average, 49 and 45 years old, with about 12 and 8 years of experience in poultry farming, respectively. The Poultry Farmers' Association was represented by 97% of outgrowers and 47% of non-outgrowers. There were four major broiler outgrowers' programs existing in the area. The Anchor-Borrower Outgrowers' program and Osun Broiler Outgrowers' program adopted a fixed contract model, whereas, the Dayntee Farm and GS Farm outgrowers' programs employed a semi-fixed contract model. The incidence of food insecurity was 18% for outgrowers and 35% for non-outgrowers, with food insecurity depth and severity being 0.025 and 0.033 for outgrowers and 0.134 and 0.52 for non-outgrowers, respectively. The study found a significant difference in outgrowers' perceptions of food insecurity as well as their coping strategies. The major perceived indicators of food insecurity were inadequate resource endowment (MD = 0.758, p<0.01) and consumption of low-cost food (MD = 0.0658, p<0.01). Food acquisition on credit (WMS = 1.700), meals adjustment (WMS = 1.425), and cooking methods' modification (WMS = 1.875) strategies were adopted to cope with food insecurity. Participation in the outgrowers' program was influenced by membership of Poultry Farmers' Association, credit access and flock sizes and the significant predictors of food security among the poultry farming households were outgrowers' participation, household size, gender, marital status and credit access. It was therefore inferred that outgrowers were considerably more food secure than the non-outgrowers, encouraging the need to scale up the program in the poultry industry. Introduction of flexible regulations and reproductive education would make the program more rewarding to the poultry farming households.