Beyond the green revolution: reviving time-tested resilient practices for enhanced food security in Ghana’s upper west region through traditional Authorities

Figures & data

Figure 1. The Exploratory sequential mixed method design guiding the study.

Source: Adapted from Creswell (2012).

Table 1. Dependent variables measuring farmers’ food insecurity coping strategies.

Dependent variables	Description	Expected sign (+/–)
Borrow food	Frequency of subsisting on borrowed food in a week	–
Forage from the wild	Frequency of foraging from the wild for fruits and bush meat in a week	–
Immature crops	Frequency of subsisting on immature crops per week	–
Ltd portion sizes	Weekly frequency of eating limited portion sizes during meals	–
Maternal buffering	Frequency of maternal buffering^2 per week	–
Grinding mill	Frequency of scraping together leftover flour from public grinding mills in a week	–
Sell assets	Frequency of selling off productive assets to buy food in a week	–
Glean from neighbours	Frequency of gleaning leftover farm produce from someone’s farm in a week	–
Finsec	Food insecurity coping strategies score	–

Table 2. Descriptive statistics.

Food insecurity coping strategies (dependent variables)	Description	Mean	SD	Min	Max
borrow	Frequency of subsisting on borrowed food in a week	0.691	1.159	0	5
wild	Frequency of foraging from the wild for fauna and flora	1.143	1.552	0	7
immature_crop	Frequency of subsisting on immature farm crops per week	1.053	1.575	0	10
ltd_portion	Weekly frequency of eating limited portion sizes during meals	1.907	2.331	0	14
mat_buffering	Frequency of maternal buffering in a week	1.183	1.601	0	7
grinding_mill	Frequency of scraping together leftover flour from public grinding mills in a week	0.583	1.184	0	14
prop_sale	Frequency of selling off productive assets to buy food in a week	1.094	1.522	0	8
glean_neighb.	Frequency of gleaning leftover farm produce someone’s farm in a week	1.060	1.684	0	8
Independent continuous variables	Description	Mean	SD	Min	Max
age	Respondent’s age in years	49.089	13.623	21	80
ARP_bylaws_enforce-mt	Frequency of meeting to adjudicate on issues relating to autonomous resilient practices (ARP) in a year	0.426	0.723	0	4
tree	Number of surviving trees each farmer personally planted and nurtured into growth	3.010	9.814	0	100
compost	Frequency of using compost on farmer’s field in a year	0.741	0.950	0	5
residue	Frequency of engaging in in-situ incorporation of farm residue on the farm in a year	0.873	1.034	0	14
bushfires	Yearly frequency of bushfires recorded on farm	0.689	0.795	0	4
tree_cut	Frequency of felling live trees in a month	0.987	1.646	0	20
slash	Frequency of engaging in slash-and-burn-farming in a year	0.650	0.854	0	4
Independent categorical variables	Description			Freq.	Percent
districts	Study Districts
Nadowli/Kaleo				256	36.57
Nandom				244	34.86
Jirapa				200	28.57
Total				700	100
marital_S	Respondent’s marital status
Married				198	28.29
Not married				502	71.71
Total				700	100
Sex	Respondent’s sex
Male				140	20
Female				560	80
Total				700	100
Education	Educational status
Educated				502	71.71
Not educated				198	28.29
Total				700	100
breadwinner	Household breadwinner
Yes				358	51.14
No				342	48.86
Total				700	100

Table 3. Farmers’ pairwise matrix ranking of their coping strategies for food insecurity.

COPING STRATEGIES	BORROW FOOD	WILD FAUNA & FLORA	IMMATURE CROPS	LTD. PORTION	MATERNAL BUFFERING	GRINDING MILL	SELL ASSETS	GLEAN	Total Score	Rank
Borrowing food (BORROW FOOD)	0	Borrow Food	Borrow Food	Ltd. Portion	Borrow Food	Borrow Food	Borrow Food	Borrow Food	6	2ND
Subsisting on wild fauna and flora (WILD FAUNA & FLORA)	0	0	Immature Crops	Ltd. Portion	Maternal Buffering	Wild Fauna & Flora	Wild Fauna & Flora	Wild Fauna & Flora	3	5TH
Subsisting on immature farm crops (IMMATURE CROPS)	0	0	0	Ltd. Portion	Immature Crops	Immature Crops	Immature Crops	Immature Crops	5	3RD
Subsisting on limited portion sizes (LTD. PORTION)	0	0	0	0	Ltd. Portion	Ltd. Portion	Ltd. Portion	Ltd. Portion	7	1ST
Engaging in maternal buffering (MATERNAL BUFFERING)	0	0	0	0	0	Maternal Buffering	Maternal Buffering	Maternal Buffering	4	4TH
Scavenging from public grinding mills (GRINDING MILL)	0	0	0	0	0	0	Sell Assets	Grinding Mill	1	7TH
Selling off productive assets (SELL ASSETS)	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	Sell Assets	2	6TH
Gleaning from neighbours’ farms (GLEAN)	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	8TH

Table 4. Incidence rate ratios from Poisson regressions showing the influence of ARP on farmers’ coping strategies for food insecurity.

	(1)	(2)	(3)	(4)	(5)	(6)	(7)	(8)
VARIABLES	Borrow food	Forage from the wild	Immature crops	Ltd portion sizes	Maternal buffering	Grinding mill	Sell assets	Glean from neighbours
Socio-demographics
District (Ref: Nadowli)
Nandom	0.287***	0.664***	0.427***	0.795*	0.428***	0.522***	0.412***	0.393***
	(0.057)	(0.097)	(0.071)	(0.097)	(0.071)	(0.100)	(0.068)	(0.056)
Jirapa	0.726*	1.848***	1.584***	3.478***	2.171***	0.215***	1.687***	0.477***
	(0.124)	(0.239)	(0.220)	(0.379)	(0.274)	(0.048)	(0.228)	(0.069)
Age	1.005	1.005*	1.000	1.003	0.995*	1.004	1.004	0.993**
	(0.004)	(0.003)	(0.003)	(0.002)	(0.003)	(0.005)	(0.003)	(0.003)
Female	0.661***	0.644***	0.708***	0.951	0.637***	0.778*	0.878	0.903
	(0.077)	(0.057)	(0.065)	(0.066)	(0.054)	(0.110)	(0.082)	(0.094)
Married	0.906	0.829**	0.902	0.944	0.902	0.904	0.850*	0.772***
	(0.100)	(0.067)	(0.076)	(0.057)	(0.071)	(0.117)	(0.071)	(0.071)
Educated	1.107	1.011	0.946	0.968	0.813**	0.996	0.872	0.919
	(0.130)	(0.092)	(0.091)	(0.067)	(0.074)	(0.128)	(0.082)	(0.089)
Breadwinner	1.017	0.914	1.042	1.135*	0.980	0.767**	0.896	0.878
	(0.111)	(0.083)	(0.098)	(0.081)	(0.088)	(0.087)	(0.080)	(0.073)
ARP bylaws enforcement	0.765**	0.721***	0.632***	0.787***	0.641***	0.688***	0.624***	0.757***
	(0.090)	(0.067)	(0.069)	(0.060)	(0.071)	(0.078)	(0.069)	(0.064)
ARP encouraged
No. of tree planted	0.973**	0.985**	0.984**	0.980***	0.990	0.984*	0.986**	0.988**
	(0.011)	(0.007)	(0.008)	(0.007)	(0.006)	(0.009)	(0.007)	(0.006)
Composting freq.	0.596***	0.800***	0.613***	0.656***	0.817***	0.483***	0.751***	0.795***
	(0.062)	(0.052)	(0.049)	(0.037)	(0.051)	(0.055)	(0.053)	(0.056)
In-situ farm residue reuse freq.	0.928	0.944	1.042	0.868***	0.805***	1.178***	0.949	0.988
	(0.072)	(0.048)	(0.046)	(0.038)	(0.050)	(0.054)	(0.051)	(0.055)
Practices discouraged
Bushfires freq.	1.213**	1.221***	1.453***	0.975	1.257***	1.326***	1.302***	1.281***
	(0.097)	(0.079)	(0.100)	(0.053)	(0.082)	(0.109)	(0.085)	(0.080)
Tree cutting freq.	1.099***	1.137***	1.116***	1.119***	1.148***	1.061**	1.096***	1.118***
	(0.023)	(0.018)	(0.020)	(0.016)	(0.018)	(0.027)	(0.020)	(0.018)
Slash&Burn freq.	1.081	1.149**	0.956	1.193***	1.020	1.226***	1.158***	1.170***
	(0.078)	(0.064)	(0.061)	(0.052)	(0.061)	(0.090)	(0.066)	(0.066)
Constant	1.069	1.156	1.245	1.062	2.065***	1.142	1.106	2.493***
	(0.348)	(0.296)	(0.338)	(0.215)	(0.529)	(0.408)	(0.292)	(0.657)
Observations	700	700	700	700	700	700	700	700
Pseudo R^2	0.2497	0.2092	0.2510	0.3147	0.2796	0.3232	0.2519	0.2865
LR Chi2 (14)	447.20	486.63	580.91	975.37	671.51	538.17	577.88	686.74

Table 5. Results of the Seemingly Unrelated Regression (SUR) models.

	(1)	(2)	(3)	(4)	(5)	(6)	(7)	(8)
VARIABLES	VARIABLES	Borrow food	Forage from the wild	Immature crops	Ltd portion sizes	Maternal buffering	Grinding mill	Sell assets
Socio-demographics
District (Ref: Nadowli)
Nandom	−0.511***	−0.141	−0.371**	−0.298	−0.270*	−0.340***	−0.531***	−0.763***
	(0.111)	(0.152)	(0.154)	(0.203)	(0.146)	(0.109)	(0.145)	(0.147)
Jirapa	−0.191	0.860***	0.751***	2.861***	1.192***	−0.551***	0.735***	−0.609***
	(0.132)	(0.179)	(0.183)	(0.241)	(0.172)	(0.128)	(0.171)	(0.174)
Age	0.005	0.008*	0.002	0.007	−0.004	0.004	0.007*	−0.003
	(0.003)	(0.004)	(0.004)	(0.005)	(0.004)	(0.003)	(0.004)	(0.004)
Female	−0.324***	−0.590***	−0.415***	0.125	−0.686***	−0.090	−0.081	−0.028
	(0.104)	(0.141)	(0.144)	(0.190)	(0.136)	(0.101)	(0.135)	(0.137)
Married	−0.001	−0.109	0.011	0.024	−0.039	0.052	−0.036	−0.088
	(0.080)	(0.109)	(0.111)	(0.146)	(0.105)	(0.078)	(0.104)	(0.106)
Educated	0.074	0.023	−0.050	−0.062	−0.219*	0.036	−0.129	−0.069
	(0.087)	(0.119)	(0.121)	(0.159)	(0.114)	(0.085)	(0.113)	(0.115)
Breadwinner	−0.035	−0.139	−0.014	0.277*	−0.039	−0.213**	−0.136	−0.219*
	(0.087)	(0.119)	(0.121)	(0.160)	(0.114)	(0.085)	(0.114)	(0.115)
ARP bylaws enforcement	−0.209***(0.057)	−0.271***(0.078)	−0.306***(0.079)	−0.257**(0.105)	−0.280***(0.075)	−0.286***(0.056)	−0.336***(0.074)	−0.346***(0.075)
ARP encouraged
No. of tree planted	−0.010**	−0.008	−0.007	−0.007	−0.005	−0.006*	−0.007	−0.010**
	(0.004)	(0.005)	(0.005)	(0.007)	(0.005)	(0.004)	(0.005)	(0.005)
Compostng freq.	−0.154***	−0.084	−0.210***	−0.362***	−0.069	−0.159***	−0.121*	−0.104
	(0.049)	(0.067)	(0.068)	(0.090)	(0.064)	(0.048)	(0.064)	(0.065)
In-situ farm residue reuse	−0.033(0.038)	−0.005(0.052)	0.052(0.053)	−0.083(0.070)	−0.090*(0.050)	0.052(0.037)	−0.025(0.049)	−0.024(0.050)
Practices discouraged
Bushfires freq.	0.149**	0.175*	0.366***	−0.262**	0.186**	0.316***	0.299***	0.372***
	(0.068)	(0.093)	(0.095)	(0.125)	(0.089)	(0.067)	(0.089)	(0.090)
Tree cutting freq.	0.192***	0.310***	0.269***	0.331***	0.349***	0.116***	0.206***	0.311***
	(0.027)	(0.037)	(0.038)	(0.050)	(0.036)	(0.027)	(0.036)	(0.036)
Slash&Burn freq.	0.155***	0.201**	0.036	0.402***	0.080	0.321***	0.286***	0.336***
	(0.059)	(0.080)	(0.082)	(0.108)	(0.077)	(0.057)	(0.077)	(0.078)
Constant	0.861***	0.956***	0.936***	0.389	1.549***	0.705***	0.740**	1.536***
	(0.255)	(0.348)	(0.355)	(0.468)	(0.335)	(0.250)	(0.333)	(0.337)
Observations	700	700	700	700	700	700	700	700
R-squared	0.361	0.337	0.333	0.471	0.425	0.416	0.371	0.472

Standard errors in parentheses. ***p < 0.01, **p < 0.05, *p < 0.1.