About two-thirds of rural households in Nigeria are engaged in crop and livestock production as their
main source of livelihood. These households are especially vulnerable to chronic food shortages owing
to adverse weather and the unavailability of enough food from home production, especially during
the post-planting season. This study attempts a proper empirical identification of the food insecure
and the reasons for their insecurity, through a profile of food insecurity indices and an investigation
of the factors influencing their status during the post-planting season in rural Nigeria. We construct
food insecurity indices and specify a probabilistic model, employing the post-planting visit data of the
first wave of the General Household Survey-Panel (2010). Results showed that almost half (49.4
percent) of rural households in the country were food insecure during the post-planting period.
Identified key rural food insecurity determinants include: gender of household head, tertiary
education of household head, access to both formal and informal credit and remittances, household
size, dependency ratio and living in the North-Central, North-East, South-East and South-West
Geopolitical zones of the country. Since food availability remained below the required levels for large
parts of the rural populace during this season, identified food insecure households should be targeted
for safety nets.