Land Ownership Arrangements, Food Security And Food Consumption Patterns in The Agro- Ecological Zones of Rural Ghana

ABSTRACT

Food insecurity remains a global health challenge especially for poor areas in developing countries. One of the ways through which access to food can be boosted for the rural dwellers is through access to land, as agriculture is the leading source of income for agricultural-based economies. Little attention, however, has been given to how land ownership arrangements of rural dwellers can affect their food security in Ghana. The study therefore examined the relationship between land ownership arrangements (owned, rented, or rent-free lands) and food security using household dietary diversity as a measure for the latter. Based on previous studies, dietary diversity was measured by categorizing households on the basis of a composite index score on unique food groups consumed into low and high dietary diversity. Bivariate and multivariate analyses were then used to examine the effects of dietary diversity on land ownership arrangements, as well as other socio-demographic and physical characteristics of households. The data source was the Climate Change, Women in Agriculture and Food Security Dataset by the Regional Institute for Population Studies (2016) which sampled 559 households in in four agro-ecological zones of rural Ghana. Results showed that age, occupation and educational level of the household head, as well as the number of daily meals of the household were significant predictors of high household dietary diversity. However, the agro-ecological zone, sex, status (marital and migration) of the household head, along with the land ownership arrangements and use of irrigation facilities by the household were not significant predictors of household dietary diversity. The study therefore did not establish any relationship between land ownership arrangements and dietary diversity (the measure of food security). The study recommends that external factors which may influence food security should be extensively studied in rural Ghana in order to improve individual and household dietary diversity.