Barnabas, B.; Agyemang, S.A.; Zhllima, E.; Bavorova, M. Impact of Homegrown School Feeding Program on Smallholders’ Farmer Household Food Security in Northeastern Nigeria. Foods2023, 12, 2408.
Barnabas, B.; Agyemang, S.A.; Zhllima, E.; Bavorova, M. Impact of Homegrown School Feeding Program on Smallholders’ Farmer Household Food Security in Northeastern Nigeria. Foods 2023, 12, 2408.
Barnabas, B.; Agyemang, S.A.; Zhllima, E.; Bavorova, M. Impact of Homegrown School Feeding Program on Smallholders’ Farmer Household Food Security in Northeastern Nigeria. Foods2023, 12, 2408.
Barnabas, B.; Agyemang, S.A.; Zhllima, E.; Bavorova, M. Impact of Homegrown School Feeding Program on Smallholders’ Farmer Household Food Security in Northeastern Nigeria. Foods 2023, 12, 2408.
Abstract
In various countries of the global south, school feeding programs are implemented in order to alleviate short-time hunger in children, improved their nutrition and provide employment for food vendors. The impact of these programs is important not only in terms of pupils’ nutrition but also in improving farmers’ livelihoods. This study analyzes the impact of the school feeding program on smallholders' food security based on data collected in 2021 from 240 farmers surveyed in northeast Nigeria. Differently from other studies, several econometric methods are used to analyze the data, namely, binary probit regression, propensity score matching, inverse probability weighted adjusted regression and endogenous switching regression. The results show that about 40% of the beneficial smallholder farmers are food secure compared to 20% of the non-beneficiary households. Findings revealed that the Homegrown school feeding program (HGSF) positively improved smallholder farmers improve household food security status. Results provide evidence for the need to expand school feeding programs vis-a-vis interventions in facilitating farmers’ access to capital and capacity building for better integration in the supply chain.
Keywords
smallholder farmers; food security; school feeding; Nigeria; propensity score matching
Subject
Biology and Life Sciences, Agricultural Science and Agronomy
Copyright:
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
