Background
Sustainable Development Goal 2 aims at ending hunger, achieving food security, improving nutrition and promoting sustainable agriculture. Whilst some smallholder farmers are aware of this goal, others are not. The question that arises is whether or not awareness translates into food security. Therefore, this study assessed whether or not smallholder farmers’ awareness of Sustainable Development Goal 2 improves household food security in the Northern Region of Ghana.
Methods
The study used cross-sectional primary data collected from two districts and two municipalities in the region. An endogenous switching regression treatment effects model with ordered outcome was used to estimate the effects of smallholder farmers’ awareness of Sustainable Development Goal 2 on household food insecurity level.
Results
The age of household head, distance of households to the regional capital, membership of farmer-based organizations, access to e-extension, education, and ownership of radio are the key drivers of farmers’ awareness of Sustainable Development Goal 2. The results from the endogenous switching regression treatment effects model with ordered outcome showed that households who are aware of the second goal are more food secure than their counterparts.
Conclusions
It is therefore prudent for stakeholders promoting and championing Sustainable Development Goals to educate farmers on goal 2 as their awareness of the goal is critical to achieving food security.
Water is an important and non-substitutable input in agricultural production. Its adequacy and quality supply is a necessity for sustainable production. However, it is increasingly getting scarce due to poor rainfall and inefficiency in use of available water. To improve the reliability of agricultural water supply, there are arguments to the effect that water needs to be privatised and treated as an economic good with an efficient price scheme. But what farmers, in reality, think about this idea of privatising irrigation is vital as they are the ultimate beneficiaries. This study therefore assessed the perception of farmers towards privatising irrigation supply using cross-sectional data collected from 240 randomly sampled famers from different households in four communities in the Nandom District. With descriptive statistics involving simple frequencies and measure of association, perceptions of farmers were analysed. The study revealed that farmers generally perceived privatisation will ensure wider provision of irrigation schemes in remote locations, make operators respond better to farmers’ needs as well as ensure service sustainability. Farmers, however, were concerned about affordability of irrigated water to the resource poor farmers when it is privatised. They were of the view that, priority might be put on profit maximisation at the expense of social welfare in a market oriented irrigation system. The study therefore recommends that the Government of Ghana, under the ‘One-village One-dam’ flagship initiative should encourage and regulate private investment in the supply of irrigation to ensure affordable and sustainable supply of the services to interested farmers.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.