eng Science and Education Publishing Journal of Food Security 2372-0107 2025-06-06 13 2 72 76 10.12691/jfs-13-2-3 JFS20251323 article Okere R. A richy4chima@yahoo.com 1 Abu. R. A 1 Oti. O. G 2 Nwawe A. K 3 Aondona O 3 Agricultural Economics Division, Nigerian Institute for Oil Palm Research, Benin, Edo State Department of Agricultural Economics, Micheal Okpara University of Agriculture, Umudike, Abia State Agrionomy Division, Nigerian Institute for Oil Palm Research, Benin, Edo State The high cost of food due to scarcity and high demand for the limited quantity of the available food has been worrisome and posed a great concern to policy makers on the need for food security hence the study. This study aims to unravel the issue to ascertain the socioeconomic features of the farmers, determine the factors affecting the food crop combinations and estimate the net returns. A multistage sampling technique was adopted for the State to collect a random sample size of 150 respondents used for the analysis. Data were analyzed with the descriptive statistics, regression analysis and net returns. The result showed that 73% of the farmers were above 45 years of age, 60% of them had over 20 years of farming experience while the regression result showed that farm size, extension contact and educational level were positively significant at 1% level. The net return from the food crops; cassava, maize and melon showed a gross margin of N210000, N44000 and N42000 with net profit of N166481.5, N32481.5 and N34789.5. It was recommended that younger people should be encouraged and adequate training should be done through formal education and extension visits to boost output hence the practice should be encouraged since it can produce enough foods regularly and still profitable. https://pubs.sciepub.com/jfs/13/2/3/jfs-13-2-3.pdf Enterprise food crop combination Food Security Smallholder Oil Palm