The impact of credit access and cooperative membership on food security of rural house-holds in south-western Nigeria

This study investigated the impact of credit access and cooperative membership on food security of rural households in Southwestern Nigeria. A multi stage sampling procedure was employed to select 300 rural households for the study. Data were analyzed using food security index, binary logit model, propensity score matching (PSM) and Augmented inverse probability weighting model (AIPW). Binary logit estimate reveals that age, household size, years of education, farm size, farm income and non-farm income significantly influenced the likelihood of rural households being members of cooperatives while household size, years of education, farm size, gender, asset and farm income significantly influenced the likelihood of rural households’ access to credit. Food security index revealed that about 66 percent of the households are food insecure. PSM revealed that cooperative membership and credit access is expected to increase the food security of rural households by approximately 1446 and 1496 kilocalories per person per day, respectively. AIPW revealed that cooperative membership and credit access is expected to increase the food security of rural households by approximately 1888 and 1899 kilocalories per person per day, respectively. The study concluded that credit access and cooperative membership has a positive and significant impact on food security of rural households. Thus, any programmes targeted at ensuring rural households’ food security, particularly southwest should take into cognizance their credit access and cooperative membership.