Sustainable Agricultural Intensification Practices and Rural Food Security: The Case of North Western Ghana

Abstract

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to understand the impact of participation in sustainable agricultural intensification practices (SAIPs) on household food security status in North Western Ghana. Design/methodology/approach – The study utilized the Household Food Insecurity Access Scale (HFIAS) indicator for the measurement of food access data from 168 households in 10 communities from the North Western region of Ghana for the analyses. Households were categorized into participating households (treatment) and non-participating households (control). The endogenous treatment effects model was employed to evaluate the impact of participation on SAIPs training on food insecurity access scale. Findings – The results show that participation in SAIPs training lower on average the household food insecurity access by 2.95, approximately an 11% reduction in HFIAS score. Other significant factors found to influence household food insecurity access scale are age of household head, experience in farming, total acres owned by household, income level of the household and occupation of the head of the household. Research limitations/implications – The training programme of participation in sustainable agricultural intensification practices (SAIPs) has massive implications for food security, rural economy and farmers’ livelihoods. However, due to the unique conditions prevailing in North Western Ghana, the findings of this research is limited in terms of its generalizability. Future research direction in the area of SAIPs trainings and impact study replications in all qualifying rural food production areas in Ghana, that are susceptible to household food insecurity, will provide a national picture of the efficacy of SAIPs trainings on household food insecurity. Practical implications – A proven means to decrease natural resource degradation, increase crops yields, and increase subsistence farmers’ income, and food security is an important intervention to resolve the seasonal food shortage, which last for five months in a typical year for agro-food dependent farming communities in North Western Ghana. Social implications – Ensuring household food security improvement and environmental sustainability will help improve living standards of food producers and reduce the adverse social challenges associated with food insecure communities such as health problems due to food deficiencies, social inequalities, environmental pollution and natural resource degradation in North Western Ghana. Originality/value – The contribution of this paper is the novel thought and approach to examine the impact of the SAIPs trainings on household food security in north western Ghana using thehousehold food insecurity access scale indicator. The study also examined the factors that affect household food security using the endogenous treatment model, which also evaluates the impact of the training programme on the outcome variable.