Who are the Poor Farm households' in Nigeria and is this Population Changing Over Time?

ABSTRACT: Reducing poverty in developing economies is a major challenge faced by the development stakeholders. Although poverty is a worldwide phenomenon, it has been observed that Nigeria is one of the countries that is worst hit by the poverty with biting effects more on the rural dwellers where the bulk of the population lives. Using the nationally representative household survey panel data by the World Bank/National Bureau of Statistics, from the 2012 to 2016 period to provide answers to what are the household demographic, farm, and geospatial characteristics that drive the likelihood of farm households entering, exiting, and re-entering poverty using the costs of basic needs approach as a marker of poverty. Four poverty levels were used in analyzing the household survey data. The two waves of poverty mobility in Nigeria approximately revealed 51.2 percent of poor farm households' in wave 1, and 42 percent in wave 2 were at risk of spending their entire lives in poverty. The probability of existing and entering two-year poverty mobility which started at 25 percent rose to 45 percent for four-year poverty mobility indicating that over time more farm households, have experienced changes in the status of their consumption expenditure relative to the poverty line. Close to households who begin poor, those who moved out of poverty in any of the other years had better endowments in terms of land and livestock ownership, urban residence, and involvement in non-farm income portfolios. It is concluded that older heads, higher educational attainment, engagement in crop/livestock production, and non-farm livelihood activities, strongly reduce the likelihood of farm households' poverty entry. Therefore, policy strategies aimed at dealing with poverty mobility should be heterogeneous across the poor farm households. Also, as the chronically poor lack physical assets and earning endowments, policy efforts should focus on education or other forms of skills acquisition programs in order to raise their livelihood portfolios and boost their earning capacity.