Household Income Diversification and Food Insecurity in the Upper West Region of Ghana

Income diversification is promoted as one of the key strategies to address food insecurity. While its impact on food security is extensively examined, knowledge of this relationship in a resource poor context experiencing environmental variability and climate change is sparse. We examined income diversification and household food insecurity in a deprived context in Ghana—the Upper West Region. Employing multivariate ordered logistic regression, we analyzed cross-sectional survey data collected on household heads (n = 1438) to explain the association between income diversification and household food insecurity. We found that household heads who reported being highly income diversified were more likely to report being severely food insecure (OR = 1.09, p ≤ 0.001). Also, poorer households compared to the richest, and those headed by widows compared to those headed by married people were more likely to report being severely food insecure. Although income diversification is a necessary strategy for survival in the Upper West Region, this alone does not seem to alleviate food insecurity in some families. Given that the region experiences high deprivation and negative effects of environmental variability, we recommend expansion of the non-farm sector to create job opportunities, while implementing a comprehensive national food security policy to address tithing problems of food production and distribution in the Upper West Region, and in similar context.