Community Development and Agricultural Transformation as Drivers of Food Security: An Empirical Study of Anambra State, Nigeria (2014-2022)

Abstract

Food insecurity continues to be a significant challenge in Nigeria notwithstanding the huge endowments of the country, and community-anchored development interventions in Nigeria have been gaining momentum as an additional way of addressing the challenge compared to traditional agricultural development policies. This study looks at how far community development interventions and agricultural transformation programs, in addition to the impact of agricultural productivity, account for variation in the food security outcomes of households in the Agricultural Revolution programme in Anambra State, Nigeria, from 2014-2022. The survey research design was used, which includes a quantitative approach and a descriptive approach. The quantitative approach and descriptive approach were applied and adopted in the survey research design. A total of 422 household heads and adult household members were selected from the six communities using stratified multistage random sampling across the state's three senatorial zones (Achalla, Ebenebe, Ifite-Ogwari, Omor, Uli and Umuchu). These yielded 401 questionnaires (95.0%) that were suitable for analysis. Descriptive statistics, Pearson product-moment correlation and multiple linear regression (at a 0.05 level of significance) were applied for data analysis. Results indicate that the community development interventions, the agricultural transformation initiatives, and agricultural productivity are separately positively and significantly associated with food security outcomes and together account for around 61% of its variance (R = 0.78; R² = 0.61; F(3, 397) = 96.31; p < .001). Agricultural productivity was the most important single predictor (β = 0.34), agricultural transformation initiatives (β = 0.31) and community development interventions (β = 0.29). The study finds that food security in rural Nigeria as a result of an integrated system that involves household welfare, community-level infrastructure and community-level institutions, alongside state-led agricultural modernization. It calls for long-term and systematic investments in rural infrastructure, cooperative rural development, mechanisation and input-delivery, in a participatory and community-oriented governance framework.