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Assessing the food security outcomes of industrial crop expansion in smallholder settings: insights from cotton production in Northern Ghana and sugarcane production in Central Ethiopia

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Abstract

The current industrial crop (IC) expansion in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) may have important ramifications for food security. This study proposes a rapid appraisal method that can capture the food security outcomes of IC expansion in smallholder settings in SSA. A key element of this approach is a common unit of household caloric intake that captures food security across its four pillars (availability, access, utilization, stability). This approach also considers the role of women in household food security. The proposed approach is tested in two radically different smallholder IC settings: cotton production in Northern Ghana and sugarcane production in Central Ethiopia.

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Fig. 1

Source: (OCHA 2013; Ghana Statistical Service 2014a)

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Notes

  1. The “availability” and “stability” pillars were introduced at the first World Food Conference in Rome (1974), just after a major food crisis where international prices of grains quadrupled (Headey and Fan 2010; Joerin and Joerin 2013). These pillars reflected the main concern of ensuring “enough” food and a “stable” food supply (FAO 2008a; Vink 2012). The “access” pillar was incorporated later (FAO 1983) after observing that despite the Green Revolution, there was still famine among vulnerable groups across the developing world (Cleaver 1972; Dasgupta 1977; Napoli 2011). This pillar was inspired by Amartya Sen’s entitlement views towards famine and hunger (Burchi and De Muro 2016). The “utilization” pillar emerged in the early 1990 s as global food security concerns shifted to the level of the individual, highlighting the relevance of general hygiene, water quality, and sanitation to take full advantage of the food consumed (FAO 1996, 2003).

  2. Food availability refers to the presence of food from one’s own production or received as a gift, while access indicates the ability to purchase sufficient quantities of food (Coates et al. 2007; Schmidhuber and Tubiello 2007; Vink 2012).

  3. Food utilization considers food safety and quality, including proper sanitary conditions across the entire food chain (Coates et al. 2007; Schmidhuber and Tubiello 2007; Wu et al. 2011; Vink 2012).

  4. Food instability reflects the risk of losing access to the resources needed to consume adequate food in the short- and long-term. These risks can be attributed to several factors such as price increases and fluctuations in food supply (Schmidhuber and Tubiello 2007; Wu et al. 2011; Tibesigwa and Visser 2016).

  5. The MDER represents the minimum amount of dietary energy per person (based on age and gender) to meet the energy needs at a minimum acceptable body mass index, adjusted for each country population characteristics (FAO et al. 2015). This study uses the national MDER as a reference point to estimate undernourishment (FAO 2008b), (i.e., 1750 kcal/day in Ethiopia and 1790 kcal/day in Ghana).

  6. In Ghana, the national prevalence of undernourishment is estimated to be less than 5% (FAO et al. 2015). The incidence of poverty is 70% in Sissala West, which has the highest incidence of poverty in the country (Ghana Statistical Service 2014b).

  7. Cultural and social factors might explain this trend. An interview with a farmer in the village of Gwollu suggests that some “men marry in order to birth more children as a strategy to increase the labor force for their farm” (personal interview, November 22, 2015). An expert interview with an official at the Savanna Agricultural Research Institute (SARI) further confirmed that “cotton harvest is almost impossible with small household” (personal interview, November 16, 2015).

  8. In Ethiopia the national prevalence of undernourishment stands at 32% (FAO et al. 2015), and the incidence poverty at 30% for rural areas (World Bank 2015).

  9. Extracted from interviews conducted with officials of development agencies at the Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development (DFATD) and the German Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ) in Accra (personal interview, December 1, 2015).

  10. Interview duration ranged between 1 and 2 hours, depending on family size and diversity of cultivated food crops.

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Acknowledgements

This study was conducted as part of the research project ‘Food Security Impacts of Industrial Crop Expansion in Sub-Sahara Africa’ (FICESSA: FY2015~FY2018). The support from the Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST) through the Belmont Forum and the United Nations University Institute for the Advanced Study of Sustainability (UNU-IAS) are acknowledged.

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  1. Institute for the Advanced Study of Sustainability, United Nations University, 53-70, Jingumae 5, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo, 150-8925, Japan

    Rodolfo Dam Lam, Sileshi Degefa & Osamu Saito

  2. Integrated Research Systems for Sustainability Science (IR3S), The University of Tokyo, 3-1, Hongo 7, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo, 133-8654, Japan

    Yaw Agyeman Boafo & Alexandros Gasparatos

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Dam Lam, R., Boafo, Y.A., Degefa, S. et al. Assessing the food security outcomes of industrial crop expansion in smallholder settings: insights from cotton production in Northern Ghana and sugarcane production in Central Ethiopia. Sustain Sci 12, 677–693 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11625-017-0449-x

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