Ghana’s agricultural commercialisation and food security: An analysis of smallholder farmers across gender and geography
Photo credit: Charles Nyaaba of the Peasant Farmers Association
A recent study by Agricultural Policy Research in Africa (APRA) Ghana researchers addresses the question: under what conditions, and at what scale, does smallholder agricultural commercialisation promote or hinder food security? The study presents an analysis of how gender and spatial inequalities in resource control determine differential capacities to commercialise and the implications of agricultural commercialisation for food security in Ghana.
The research also assessed how availability of land allows male and female smallholder farmers in Ghana to equally engage in agricultural commercialisation, as well as how different triggers, such as necessity, impact commercialisation and, subsequently, food security. Further, researchers also analyse how gender and inequalities in resource control in different places determine the capacities of Ghana’s smallholder farmers to commercialise, and the implications of agricultural commercialisation on food security in southern Ghana, a predominant export area versus that of northern Ghana, which engages primarily in food crop farming.
This study uses different methods to examine the conditions, and the extent to which, smallholder agricultural commercialisation promotes or hinders food security in southern and northern Ghana.
Read the full study, here: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03066150.2021.1945584