Comprehensive Analysis Of Food And Nutrition Security At Household Level In Ghana

Ghana agricultural sector has not produced enough food to fulfil the population’s demands,though agriculture has played an important role in the nation’s development.Food security issues continue to plague the nation.Many issues have inhibited Ghana’s ability to address food and nutrition security,including a lack of proper policy implementation,insufficient resources,population growth,changes in demographic features,increasing food prices,and lack of comprehensive national policy.Ghana’s food security needs to be assessed from a broader perspective,including availability,accessibility,and utilization with the various socioeconomic and demographic features.In Ghana,empirical evidence on food and nutrition security is inconclusive.Also,most empirical studies concentrate on total food consumption or one food item.The study provides comprehensive analyzes of food and nutrition in Ghana.The outcome of this study will help the country formulate the proper food policies to help achieve the sustainable development goal and contribute to the literature.The research was carried out in accordance with four objectives.The first and second objectives used the most recent national representative,cross-sectional data from the Ghana Demographic and Health Survey(GDHS-2014).Multivariate logistic regression models were used to examine the relationship between food groups,dietary diversity,and nutrition adequacy,and marginal effects were applied to estimate the magnitude.The first objective examined the association between socioeconomic status and Adequate Dietary Diversity Score(ADDS),food items,and food groups of children in Ghana.The study revealed an association between socioeconomic statuses and ADDS,food items,and food groups.The mean score for dietary diversity was low,3.39(95% CI: 3.30–3.49)across eight food categories,and the prevalence of adequate dietary diversity was 22%.The second objective assessed children’s dietary diversity,food groups,and nutrition adequacy with agroecological zones’ potential.The results show a relationship between food groups,dietary diversity,nutrition adequacy,and agro-ecological zones.The primary finding was that consumption of adequate dietary diversity decreased from the least affected climatic zone(12.7 %)to the most susceptible zones(1.7%).Based on the study findings,the situation requires government interventions such as nutrition education and improvement of socioeconomic status to improve child malnutrition in the country.The third and fourth objectives used the latest nationally representative data from the Ghana Statistical Service’s 2016/2016 Ghana Living Standards Survey(GLSS7).Using the ordinary least square(OLS)of the set Engel curve,the third objective looked at the effects of demographic characteristics on household food consumption expenditure.Overall,the study found that gender affects food consumption expenditures in Ghana.Males are observed to have larger budget shares for food consumption expenditure than females.The final objective assessed the determinants of household food expenditure using quantile regression(QR)analysis.The current study’s results indicate an important association between income and food expenditure.Significantly,quantile regression permits the study of how the influence of socio-demographic characteristics changes across the various points of the food expenditure quantiles.According to the results of this study,households with high food expenditures are more responsive to income rises than households with low food expenditures,and they are more likely to spend more on food when income increases.The research further revealed that socioeconomic and demographic characteristics such as education,marital status,household size,place of residence,ethnicity,and the region also influence household food expenditure.Government priority areas should include inclusive development,increased agricultural output and productivity,and increased agricultural sector investment.