Despite the tremendous contribution of rural households to Nigeria’s economy, they are still described by food insecurity, hence the need to revamp the livelihood of the people for sustainable food security and rural development. Therefore, the study assessed the nexus between the livelihood’s diversification and food security of the rural households in Ondo State, Nigeria. Data were collected from 120 rural household heads using well-structured questionnaire. Data collected were analysed using descriptive statistics, food security index, and probit regression model. The results revealed that 80.8% of the respondents were male, 82.5% were married and majority (83%) of them had at least primary school education. The primary occupation was farming and 73.3% of the respondents were observed to combine both farm and non-farm activities. Petty trading, civil service, commercial motorcycling, welding, tailoring, lumbering, among others were observed to be the common non-farm income sources adopted by households in the study area. The mean per capita food expenditure (MPCFE) for the food secure and food insecure households were ₦5,820.00 and ₦2,119.50, respectively with a bench mark of ₦3,005.68. The results of the food security index showed that about 67.5% and 32.5% of the respondents were food secure and food insecure with index of 1.94 and 0.71, respectively. The results of probit regression showed that marital status, household size and number of income sources significantly influenced household food security status in the study area. The conclusion drawn from the study was that, diversification of livelihood is a pursuit that enables rural households to attain a secured food status.