The impact of agricultural insurance adoption on the food security of smallholder rice farmers remains inadequately
understood. Thus, this study investigated the effect of agricultural insurance adoption on the food security of smallholder rice
farmers in North Central Nigeria. The study utilized data from 400 smallholder rice farmers consisting of 200 adopters and 200
non-adopters of agricultural insurance selected from 16 communities of four States in North Central Nigeria using multistage
sampling technique. The collected data were analysed using independent sample t-test and endogenous switching regression
model (ESRM). The findings showed that the mean food security of adopters of agricultural insurance in the study area was
1.9728 while that of the non-adopters was 1.0272. The t-test result shows that there was significant difference at 1% in the food
security of adopters and non-adopters of agricultural insurance (t = 6.963, p < 0.01). The ESRM showed that rice farmers who
adopted agricultural insurance were not better than random rice farmers in terms of food security and vice-versa. The ESRM
also revealed that agricultural insurance adoption and food security of smallholder rice farmers were significantly influenced
by their socio-economic characteristics. The study recommended that campaigns on farmers’ awareness of agricultural
insurance should be intensified by stakeholders in the rice industry to encourage patronage; and that policies and programmes
targeted at making smallholder farmers subscribe to agricultural insurance as well as to increase their level of food security
should take into consideration the socio-economic characteristics of the farmers in their design and implementation