The influence of public relations on food security among cocoa marketers in Ondo state, Nigeria

Food insecurity is quickly becoming a key topic in national and international debates. Consequently, a series of studies on food security and its determinants have been conducted. However, none of these studies has measured food security among cocoa marketers or taken into account the influence of public relations (PR) on food security among cocoa marketers in Nigeria. Therefore, this paper aimed to identify the adopted PR strategies, measure the food security status and determine the influence of PR strategies on food security of marketers. A combination of purposive and random sampling techniques was used to select a group of 100 respondents. The analytical tools included descriptive statistics, food security index and logistic regression analysis. The result revealed that the majority of respondents were males with an average household size of eight persons. The food security index showed that 65% of the study participants were food insecure. The logistic regression analysis indicated that about 53% of the total variation in food security of the wholesale cocoa marketers was accounted for by the estimated explanatory variables. The age of the respondents, marketing margin, household size, access to credits and PR strategies constituted the critical determinants of food security among cocoa marketers in the area. It was determined that the government should provide PR tools at a subsidised rate as well as train marketers on the effective use of these tools. Policies that address irregular access to the mobile phone network and high airtime tariff challenges associated with the adoption of PR strategies in the country, as well as those aimed to reduce household sizes should be encouraged.