ASSESSMENT OF HIRED LABOUR USE AND FOOD SECURITY AMONG RURAL FARMING HOUSEHOLDS IN KWARA STATE , NIGERIA

This study examined the relationship between hired labour use and food security among rural farming households in Kwara State, Nigeria. It determined the food security status of rural farming households and investigated the determinants of hired labour use. A four-stage random sampling technique was used to select 135 rural farming households from which data were collected with the use of a well-structured questionnaire. Descriptive statistics, correlation analysis and the Tobit regression model were the analytical tools used for the study. The study revealed that only about half of the households (51.1%) were food secure and that there is a positive correlation between the hired labour use and their food security status. Dependency ratio, age and educational qualification of the household head, total household size, and household income significantly influenced hired labour use (p<0.01). The study recommends the need for agricultural credit schemes in Nigeria to accord higher priority to older farmers and poor rural households. In addition, extension education which emphasizes agriculture as a business rather than a mere way of life should be promoted among farmers.


Introduction
Food security exists when all people, at all times, have physical, social and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life (FAO, 2002).A farming household is therefore adjudged food secure when the trio of food availability, food accessibility, and affordability is guaranteed in the required quantity and quality (World Bank, 2001).The importance of food security stems from the fact that food is a basic necessity for a healthy and productive life (Muhammad-Lawal and Omotesho, 2004).Its importance in maintaining political stability and peace among people attests to the place of food security in national security and hence world security (Jensen, 2002).
World Food Program (WFP) (2013) reported that about 842 million people (one in every eight) across the world suffer chronic hunger.Almost all the hungry people live in the rural areas of developing countries, and belong to mostly farming families and represent about 15% of the population of such countries (Hunger Notes, 2013).Sub-Saharan Africa, over the years, has remained the region with the highest prevalence of undernourishment, leaving one out of every six children underweight and one out of every four stunted.Fakiyesi (2001) reported that 66% of Nigerians live below poverty line when judged by level of food security.Also, over 40% of the Nigerian population was found to be food insecure in 2005 (Sanusi et al., 2006).In the country, the duo of corrupted governance and almost total dependence on earnings from petroleum has negatively impacted on agricultural development resulting in an increase of hunger.The spillover effect of huge importation of food from poorer neighbouring countries into Nigeria has taken its toll on food prices and hence food insecurity in the affected countries.Agricultural productivity is linked to food security as higher agricultural productivity would translate to larger food supplies, lower food prices, higher farm income and higher purchasing power for other basic necessities for the attainment of household food security (Wunderlich and Norwood, 2006).
Agricultural production in Nigeria though the mainstay of the economy, still rests largely on the shoulders of small-scale, resource-poor farmers who inhabit the rural areas of the country.Aside from the numerous challenges such as poor infrastructures, poor access to technology has continued to limit their production as evidenced by the dependence on hoes and cutlasses, which has kept them at the subsistent level of production.Agricultural production in the country has therefore been heavily labour-intensive with farmers relying on their households for labour supply.Gocowski and Oduwole (2003) confirmed labour as a major constraint to peasant agricultural production in Nigeria especially during planting, weeding and harvesting.Emphasizing the critical role of human power in agricultural production for sub-Saharan Africa, FAO (2003) estimated that 65% of agricultural land in this region is prepared by hand power.The organization further projected is not likely to change about the farm power input composition in the foreseeable future.
Labour supply from the family level has been dwindling considerably over the past years due to a number of factors, some of which are related.The achievement of the international labour organization in child labour prevention coupled with the increasing awareness of the importance of education even in the rural areas has increased the proportion of children in schools hence reducing time available to work on the farm (Diallo et al., 2013).The Universal Basic Education Programme embarked upon by the Federal Government of Nigeria also succeeded in providing primary schools within walking distances in several Nigerian rural communities resulting in more children in the schools and less on the farms.Hunger and poor nutrition with their resultant ill-health and sometimes deaths, have also taken its toll on available labour from farming families.Rural-urban migration and the more attractive off-farm labour requirement have left mainly the aged and less mobile farmers to work on the farms (Oluyole et al., 2013).Amsalu et al. (2013) opined that shortage of farm labour at peak seasons may be a reason for households to hire farm labour.In addition, vulnerable households such as women headed or orphaned households are usually unduly disadvantaged on family labour availability and productivity (Babatunde et al., 2008).Therefore, although most desired by peasants because of its lower transaction cost (Beckmann, 2000), family labour is gradually becoming recognized as unsustainable hence the need for alternative source of human power to meet the food security requirement of the country.Hired labour is not only relevant where family labour is inadequate.The much desired transition from small-scale farming to commercial level production by expansion of production resources definitely requires outsourcing for additional labour.According to Blanc et al. (2008) the proportion of hired labour in total farm labour use in many developing countries has continued to increase over time.
There is a possibility therefore that agricultural productivity in Nigeria may be limited as a result of poor use of hired labour thus affecting food security.It is important to investigate the relationship between hired labour, agricultural productivity and food security status among farming households.Farmers who are naturally more inclined to avoid payment of wages to hired hands would have a clearer basis for decision on farm labour structure.Given the importance of hired labour to agricultural productivity, knowledge of the determinants of its usage among farmers will be of use to policy makers in encouraging its use.In analysing hired labour use and food security status among rural farming households in Kwara State, Nigeria, this study specifically: 1. determined the food security status of the farming households; 2. examined the relationship between their food security status and hired labour use; 3. analysed the determinants of hired labour use among farming households in the State.

Material and Methods
The study was conducted in Kwara State, Nigeria.The population for the study comprised all rural farming households in Kwara State.A four-stage random sampling procedure was used to select the sample for the study.The first stage involved the random selection of one of the four agro-ecological zones in the state.
This was followed by a random selection of three out of the five local government areas (LGAs) in the zone.The selected LGAs were: Ilorin East, Ilorin West and Asa.The third stage of the process involved the random selection of nine villages from the three LGAs previously selected.Lastly, 135 farming households were randomly selected from the list of farming households in the villages.The study utilized primary data which were collected with the use of a well-structured questionnaire.Descriptive statistics, the Pearson correlation analysis (at 5% level of significance) and the Tobit regression analysis were employed in analysing the data generated from the study.

Results and Discussion
Socio-economic characteristics of respondents are presented in Table 1.Table 1 shows that the majority of the households (85.2%) are male headed.It is expected that male headed households have an edge over female headed or orphaned households particularly with respect to labour.The mean age of about 48 years suggests that on the average, the respondents are still within the productive age bracket and would possess the vigour required for agricultural production.However, the age distribution reveals that there may possibly be a shift away from agriculture in favour of other off-farm jobs as the majority of the respondents (74.1%) are over 40 years of age.A large percentage of the respondents (77.8%) are married and this is assumed to create some stability and also to improve access to more family labour.About 65.2% of the respondents have formal education although a large percentage has only the primary education.The mean average size of 5.5 observed among the respondents is below the acclaimed average household size of about 8 which is more common in rural communities in Nigeria.The mean monthly income of N21,776 shows that on the average, the household members make less than one dollar per day (about 0.81$) when the average income is divided by the mean household size of 5.5.
Table 2 shows that 88.9% of the sampled households consumed adequate quantity of food and are therefore calorie secured.However, only 51.9% consumed the recommended 65 g of protein daily.On the whole, about half (51.1%) of the households were found to be food secured.The food security status is a reflection of the average income earlier analysed to be less than 1$ per day per person.The result of the correlation analysis presented in Table 3 shows that a positive correlation exists between the food security status of the sampled household and the quantity of hired labour in use by the households.This implies that food security increased with increased use of hired labour.The positive relationship between hired labour used and household food security may be attributed to higher farm income generated from farm expansion and increased farming activities made possible by the available additional labour.Table 4 reveals that five of the six variables namely: dependency ratio, age of household head, total household size, household income and educational qualification significantly influenced labour use (p<0.01) in the study area and explained 92.32% of the observed variations.Dependency ratio, age, household income and educational qualification with positive coefficients have a direct relationship with labour use and hence labour use will increase with an increase in these variables.However, increases in total household size will result in a decrease in hired labour use as shown by the negative coefficient signifying an inverse relationship.A high dependency ratio implies the present of a relatively high proportion of household members who for reasons of age or some other challenges, may not be productive and who must be supported and accommodated in the family income.It could therefore be expected that an increase in the dependency ratio will result in an increase in hired labour use.Similarly, as the household head grows older, it is likely that his agricultural productivity will begin to decline due to reduced physical strength, and hence the need for additional labour.Higher household size is expected to result in more family labour and hence to reduce the need for hired labour.This is in spite of the observation by Oluyole et al. (2013) who reported that there was no relationship between household size and labour use structure in a similar study carried out in Nigeria.The fact that hired labour use increased with an income may not be unconnected with the availability of more money from which wages of hired labour could be paid.Education has been reported to aid adoption of innovation and also to positively influence awareness.It is possible that knowledge acquired through education has aided the educated household heads in decision making on labour structure.Other studies have reported similar findings on the effect of education on hired labour use (Bhati, 1980;Benjamin and Kimhi, 2006) The absence of a significant relationship between farm size and hired labour use contradicts the report by Dupraz et al. (2010) in which farm size was reported to significantly and positively impact on hired labour use in French and Swiss crop farms.

Conclusion
This study analysed hired labour use in relation to food security status of rural farming households in Kwara State, Nigeria.The study concluded that on the average, about 0.8$ was available for upkeep per person per day in the study area.About 51.1% of the households were confirmed food secure.A direct and positive relationship was also observed to exist between the hired labour use and food security status of the households.Dependency ratio, age of household head, total household size, household income and educational qualification significantly influenced hired labour use (at p<0.01).The study therefore makes the following recommendations: 1. Agricultural credit schemes in Nigeria should accord higher priority to older farmers and households with higher dependency ratio.
2. Extension education should emphasise the need for farmers to see agriculture as a business rather than a way of life.

Table 1 .
Socio-economic characteristics of respondents.

Table 2 .
Food security status of respondents.

Table 3 .
Result of the correlation analysis between hired labour and food security status.Correlation is significant by Pearson correlation analysis at 0.05 levels (2-tailed). *

Table 4 .
Determinants of hired labour use.