Abstract

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