1. ABOUT THE DATASET
Title: Northeast Nigerian Food System Data
Creator(s): Chinweoke Uzoamaka Ike
Organisation(s): University of Reading
Rights-holder(s): Chinweoke Uzoamaka Ike
Publication Year: 2025
Description:
This dataset captures household food system and food security conditions in Northeast Nigeria using a mixed-methods, transdisciplinary design. The core is a household survey (target = 400, realized n = 375) collected via multistage random sampling across two case-study states (Taraba and Gombe) during FebMar 2020 (2 states ? 4 agri zones ? 8 LGAs ? 16 communities ? 25 households each). Qualitative components comprise six focus group discussions and a stakeholder consultation (farmers, extension agents, agronomist, food scientist, agricultural economist) that informed causal loop diagrams (CLDs) and a system dynamics model. The survey covers demographics; croplivestock production and diversity; labour and costs; markets and forest foods; income and expenditures; and food consumption with a Dietary Diversity Score (DDS) module following FAO/FANTA groupings. Data were cleaned and analysed with descriptive statistics and system-thinking tools (CLD/Vensim). Fieldwork followed ethics approval and COVID-19 safety protocols. 
Changelog: Not applicable (first public release).
Cite as (recommended):
Ike, C. U. (2025). Northeast Nigerian Food System Data (v1.0). University of Reading. Dataset. https://doi.org/_to-be-assigned_
Related publication:
Ike, C. U., (To be update with full citation/DOI when available.) 
Contact:
Chinweoke Uzoamaka Ike  c.u.ike@pgr.reading.ac.uk University of Reading
Acknowledgements:
Thanks to participating households and community leaders in Taraba and Gombe States; enumerators and supervisors; FGD and stakeholder participants; and supervisors/mentors for guidance.

2. TERMS OF USE
Copyright  2025 Chinweoke Uzoamaka Ike.
This dataset is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence (CC BY 4.0): https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
You are free to share and adapt the material for any purpose, even commercially, provided appropriate credit is given, a link to the licence is provided, and changes are indicated.

3. PROJECT AND FUNDING INFORMATION
Title: Project title
Dates: 2018 - 2022
Funding organisation: CommonwealthScholarship Commission
Grant no.: NGCS-2018-446
Ethics: University of Reading ethics approval 04/2/2020; COVID-19 risk-mitigation (outdoor FGDs where possible, masks/sanitizers, distancing, temperature checks); verbal informed consent in preferred languages. 

4. CONTENTS
File listing
/data/
  Northeast_Nigeria_FoodSystem_2020_households.sav   # core microdata (SPSS; de-identified)
/docs/
  VARIABLE OUTPUT_dictionary.pdf                               # variable labels/types (export of OUTPUT.docx)
  Methodology.pdf                                     # detailed study methodology (export of Methodology.docx)
  VARIABLE_NOTES.md                                   # DDS group mapping; value labels; missing codes
/readme/
  README_Ike_2025.txt                                 # this file
/code/
  01_cleaning.do                                      # cleaning (Stata)
  02_construct_DDS.R                                  # DDS construction (R)
  03_analysis.py                                      # descriptive analysis (Python)
  04_CLD_model.vensim                                 # system dynamics model (Vensim)
Specialised formats / software:
* SPSS .sav (tested with IBM SPSS 26+; also readable via R (haven), Python (pyreadstat))
* Vensim model file (.vensim) for CLD/system dynamics
Codebook / Data dictionary (summary)
* Records (approx.): 375 households (realized sample)
* Variables (approx.): ?170 across identification, demographics, diet, agriculture, labour/costs, markets/forests, income/expenditure, DDS, and derived indicators. 
Key variable groups (examples):
* Identification & sample design: Enumeratornumber, Localgovernmentnumber, HOUSEHOLDNUMBER, start, end, subscriberid 
* Demographics & socioeconomic: Householdsize/HHSIZE, @3Genderofthehouseholdhead, Ageofthehouseholdhead, MaritalStatusofthehouseholdhead, highest education, years of schooling, employed persons count 
* Food consumption & DDS (24h + 7d): 16 FAO/FANTA food groups with 7-day frequencies (e.g., cereals; vitamin A-rich veg/tubers; dark green leafy veg; fruits; organ meats; fish; legumes/nuts/seeds; milk; oils/fats; sweets; spices/condiments/beverages); derived DDS (DDSAMMEN1) 
* Ultra-processed foods & eating out: UPF presence/spend (NGN); reasons (availability, nutrition/taste, status, convenience, price); venues (street food, restaurant, kiosk, aid) 
* Production & agrobiodiversity: farming system; # crop species; varieties for yam/beans/groundnut/cassava; under-utilised crops (ogbono, yam bean, fio fio, cocoyam); livestock counts/breeds/system; land/plots (owned/farmed, 20172019) 
* Labour & cost: labour days per operation (by gender/children); tractor/agrochemical costs; unit cost/person-day; labour sources 
* Markets, forests & access: primary food source; sales channels; distances (homefarm, nearest forest); forest foods (types, spend/revenue, visit frequency) 
* Income & expenditures: monthly income/expenditure; food expenditure; (gross) farm income; planting costs. Currency NGN. 
Units & formats (conventions):
* Currency: Nigerian Naira (NGN), nominal (price of 2020)
* Distance: kilometres (km)
* Time: days (e.g., 7-day consumption)
* Dates: ISO (YYYY-MM-DD)

5. METHODS
Design: Mixed-methods, transdisciplinary: quantitative household survey + qualitative FGDs + stakeholder consultation, feeding into system thinking (CLD) and system dynamics modelling (Vensim). 
Study area: Northeast Nigeria (Borno, Yobe, Taraba, Gombe, Bauchi, Adamawa); case-study states: Taraba and Gombe. Context: high poverty/food insecurity; mixed farming and mixed cropping predominant. 
Sampling: Multistage random sampling (2 states ? 4 agri zones ? 8 LGAs ? 16 communities ? 25 households each). Realized sample n = 375 (COVID-19 disruptions). Regular, non-institutional households; IDP camps excluded. Six FGDs across zones. 
Data collection & timeline:
* Household survey: FebMar 2020 (demographics; crop/animal production; markets/forests; food sources; expenditures/income; labour; DDS) 
* FGDs: OctNov 2020 on policy thrusts vs. sustainable food security (5-point Likert, mean cut-offs) 
* Stakeholder consultation: Dec 2020  Feb 2022 (farmers, extension, agronomist, food scientist, ag. economist; online/offline) to inform CLD/system dynamics model 
Instruments: Structured household questionnaire; DDS module using FAO/FANTA 16 food groups (aggregated to HDDS for analysis); FGD guide; stakeholder prompts for CLD development. 
Processing & analysis:
Consistency checks; handling missingness/outliers; encoding and derivations (e.g., DDS); descriptive statistics; CLD + system dynamics modelling (Vensim) to identify leverage points for sustainable food security. Provide scripts and session info (Stata/R/Python) for reproducibility. 
People:
Creator/PI: Chinweoke Uzoamaka Ike. Enumerators/supervisors and FGD facilitators contributed to data collection. Stakeholders contributed to CLD development.
Reference to detailed methods: See /docs/Methodology.pdf for full methodology narrative. 

(Optional) Ready-to-paste DataCite JSON (with licence)
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  }],
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