Informal ready-to-eat food vending governance in urban Nigeria: Formal and informal lenses guiding the practice.

Informal ready-to-eat food vending is an important, cheap, convenient, accessible and readily available urban food supply sector that has become an increasingly important part of the diets of people in developing cities in Africa and throughout other contexts in the Global South. Over decades, despite challenges associated with health and hygiene, street foods have been informally accepted as part of the urban food supply system, particularly among the urban poor. Despite the importance of street foods to food security and employment needs in urban Nigeria and elsewhere, very little is known about the governance arrangements (whether formal or informal) revolving around their food provisioning practices. The paper explores governance arrangements that steer and shape food provisioning practices in Ibadan, Nigeria. Taking a social practice approach, the paper analyses the interconnections between governance and ready-to-eat food vending practices. It doing so, it draws on insights generated through a qualitative study incorporating in-depth interviews and participant observation methods to understand different governance arrangements revolving around food vending practices. The findings reveal that formal and informal governance structures are jointly steering and shaping practices of informal ready-to-eat food vending. They furthermore highlight the crucial role informal middlemen fulfill in informal food governance chains. These insights provide new avenues for thinking about food governance of urban food supply systems in terms of co-governance between formal and informal actors. They also provide empirical evidence that can aid policy application and implementation on urban food supply systems going forward. The paper concludes by discussing the potential of a co-governance informal food sector framework that recognizes and encompasses the formal-informal nature of the food sector. Such an approach recognizes and involves informal middlemen in the governance of informal ready-to-eat street food vending embedded in a larger framework of food system governance.

Informal ready-to-eat food vending: a social practice perspective on urban food provisioning in Nigeria.

The way people access food in Nigeria is of central relevance for food security, health and sustainability. One key trend is the shift from household-based to primarily out-of-home food consumption as an increasing majority of the urban poor derive their daily nutrient intake from street foods. However, few studies have yet explored the role of the ready-to-eat food vending sector in urban food systems and the diets of the urban poor. This paper investigates the interrelations between these practices and the diversity of food groups provisioned among the urban poor in developing city contexts. A social practice approach is employed to explore differentiation among informal-ready-to-eat food vending practices in the city of Ibadan, Nigeria, in terms of their daily activities, competences and resources. Applied methods include GIS mapping, food log diaries, in-depth interviews and participant observation to map and classify informal-ready-to-eat food vending practices according to the nature of food provisioned and explore the everyday performances of different informal-ready-to-eat food vending practice initiatives and their relation to dietary diversity. The results reveal three key categories among these practices: traditional, processed and unprocessed-with varying levels of diversity in the food groups on offer. Traditional food vendors offer more diversified food compared to processed food vendors and unprocessed food vendors. The results reveal that material infrastructure, cooking bargaining and purchasing skills and nutritional knowledge are key to the diversity of food groups provisioned. The paper concludes by considering the wider relevance of these findings for urban food science and policy.

Socioeconomic factors affecting households' use of indigenous forest management practices in managing non-wood forest products: evidence from forest communities in Nigeria derived savannah.

Although indigenous forest management practices have been used effectively by local people in the management and conservation of forest resources, these practices are eroding, causing negative consequences on the welfare of the people and their forests. To stem the erosion of the indigenous practices and instead stimulate, preserve, or improve their use, this study determines the socioeconomic factors that drive the household's use of the practices in the management and conservation of plant species of non-wood forest products (NWFPs). The study was carried out in Nigeria derived savannah. Data was collected from 200 randomly selected households in 10 randomly selected forest communities. Multivariate probit model was used to estimate the socioeconomic factors that influence the simultaneous use of indigenous forest management practices by households. Given multiple use of the practices, the result shows that the indigenous forest management practices used by the households are selective weeding (82.98%), controlled harvesting (82.45%), enrichment planting (75.53%), fire breaks (76.06%) and indigenous protective mechanism (45.74%). The majority (71.28%) of the respondents said they managed bush mango (Irvingia gabonensis and wombulu) using the practices, while the lowest proportion (21.28%) managed bush buck (Gongronema latifolium). The result of the multivariate probit model shows that virtually all the indigenous forest management practices are positively and significantly associated and are thus, complements. However, local protective mechanisms and controlled harvesting, local protective mechanisms and selective weeding, and local protective mechanisms and enrichment planting are not significantly associated. Farming occupation significantly increases the likelihood of simultaneous use of controlled harvesting, enrichment planting, and fire breaks as indigenous forest management practices in the management and conservation of NWFP. On the other hand, age significantly reduces the likelihood of the use of controlled harvesting and selective weeding. The study recommends the provision of support for young people who are more likely to be involved in the indigenous forest management practices; support to farmers who simultaneously use the practices, for example, through the provision of credit facilities; and a proper definition of user rights in community forests.