An Empirical Study of Determinants of Food Insecurity in Jigawa State : Food Insecurity in Nigeria

More than 800 million people throughout the world and particularly in developing countries do not have enough food to meet their basic dietary needs (FAO, 1996). The problems of hunger and food insecurity is a global dimensions and are likely to persist and even increase dramatically in some regions, unless urgent and concerted action is taken, given the anticipated increase in the world's population and the stress on natural resources. Jigawa State being the 8th most populous state in Nigeria with 4.3 million people based on 2006 Population Census, in addition, the state is blessed with large expanse of agricultural land of 2.24 million hectares (JARDA, 2009) but unfortunately, the state is ranked as the 11th poorest in the country with 79.0% level of poverty (NBS, 2012). The research dwells on the Primary sources of data (cross sectional) using Descriptive and inferential tools of analysis, specifically Logit Regression analysis. The study however, used cost - of - calories on food consume by households as a bench mark to differentiate between food insecure households and food secure households.