The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) describes food insecurity as a situation of limited or uncertain availability of nutritionally adequate safe foods or limited or uncertain ability to acquire acceptable foods in socially acceptable ways.

The report on ‘Comprehensive Food Security and Vulnerability Analysis (CFSV) survey revealed that a total of 3.6 million, representing 12 per cent of households, are food insecure.

It said 2.8 million of these people are in the rural areas and about 800,000 are in the urban areas.

The report was conducted by the Ghana Statistical Service and other partners including the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MoFA), Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), World Food Programme (WFP) and the Canadian High Commission.

The report was released on Tuesday, December 14, 2021 in Accra and was presented by the Director of Operations at the GSS and Coordinator of the CFSVA, Dr Peter Takyi Peprah.

He said the CFSVA would address the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs 1) ‘No Poverty,’ SDG 2, ‘End hunger and address undernourishment among mothers and children’ and SDG 3 to ensure that people lived healthy lives and reduce child mortality to raise life expectance.

Food insecurity

The report identified the drivers of food insecurity to include sex of households, education of household head, size of household, livelihood groups, wealth, migrant sending status, adoption of coping strategies and expenditure on food, among others.

It cited Kassena Nankana West, Karaga, Builsa South, Tatale, Bolgatanga East, Kumbungu, Jirapa, Chereponi, Tempane and Bongo as the 10 worse off food insecure districts.

A breakdown of the analysis puts food insecurity in the Upper East Region at 48.7 per cent, North East, 33.0 per cent, Northern, 0.7 per cent, Upper West 22.8 per cent, Savannah 22.6 per cent, Ahafo 17.3 per cent and Bono East 16.7 per cent.

The rest are Greater Accra 3.5 per cent, Central 3.8 per cent, Western 5.1 per cent, Eastern 7.9 per cent, Oti 8.0 per cent, Volta 9.9 per cent, Bono 12.2 per cent and Western North region 13.1 per cent.

It emerged that less educated households are more food insecure and the level of food insecurity in relation households with tertiary background are higher.

“People whose livelihoods are predominantly agric-related, unskilled labour and those dependent on remittance were also more food insecure, transcending to rural food insecurity being relatively higher as compared to the urban centres,” it said.

The report

The CFSVA report is a periodic research conducted by the GSS and its partners. It was first conducted in 2004 and subsequently in 2009 and 2012.

The 2020 edition was conducted in all 260 districts in the country and sampled 65,300 households.