Urban Food Security During Covid-19: Households Access to Food in High, Middle and Low Income Neighborhoods in Minna - Niger State, Nigeria

Abstract

One of the key drivers of the 2030 Agenda for sustainable development is access to food which remains a global concern and a topic of debate at global level more importantly during the outbreak of Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in urban communities. This paper focused on a cross-sectional study of access to food among urban households in high, middle and low income neighborhoods in Minna - Niger State. A simple random sampling technique was used to select 30 households for the study while the data collected through questionnaires were analyzed using descriptive statistics. Thematic analysis was employed on interview and observation data. In this study, findings revealed that only 43 % of the sampled households had physical access to food during covid-19 pandemic. The cross-sectional analysis revealed that only 10 % of the households living in low-income neighborhood were able to accessed food during the pandemic compared to household 70 % and 50% in middle and high income neighborhood respectively. Findings also revealed that 100% of low-income households had no stable access to food sources during the pandemic compared to 60% and 40 % in middle and high-income neighborhood who claimed not to have stable access to their food source during the pandemic. This study indicates that the urban households in low-income neighborhoods were more exposed to the pandemic and threatened by food insecurity compared to the middle and high income households. Thus this paper recommends a safety net program with a special focus on urban poor so as to ease the urban household food insecurity that arise from shocks of COVID-19 pandemic and another public health crisis and pandemics that may likely happen in the future.