Benefts of farmer managed natural regeneration to food security in semi‑arid Ghana
Date
2024
Authors
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Journal ISSN
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Publisher
Agriculture and Human Values
Abstract
Promoting Farmer Managed Natural Regeneration (FMNR) aims to increase the productive capacities of farmer households. Under
FMNR, farmers select and manage natural regeneration on farmlands and keep them under production. While FMNR contributes
to the wealth of farming communities, its contribution to household food security has rarely been researched. We, therefore, used a
mixed-methods approach to address the research gap by measuring FMNR’s contribution to food security among farmer households
in the Talensi district of Ghana. We adopted the Household Dietary Diversity Score (HDDS) and Food Consumption Score (FCS) to
estimate food security status among 243 FMNR farmer households and 243 non-FMNR farmer households. Also, we performed a
Chi-square test of independence to compare the frequency of each food group (present vs not present) between FMNR adopters and
non-FMNR adopters to establish the relationship between adopting FMNR and consuming the FCS and HDDS food groups. Our
results reveal that FMNR farmer households are more food secure than non-FMNR farmer households. The HHDS of the FMNR
farmer households was 9.6, which is higher than the target value of 9.1. Conversely, the HHDS of the non-FMNR farmer households
was 4.3, which is lower than the target value of 9.1. Up to 86% and 37% of the FMNR farmer households and non-FMNR farmer
households fell within acceptable FCS; 15% and 17% of FMNR farmer households and non-FMNR farmer households fell within
borderline FCS. While none of the FMNR farmer households fell within poor FCS, 46% of non-FMNR farmer households fell within
poor FCS. Adopting FMNR is signifcantly related to consuming all food groups promoted and benefting from FMNR practices. The
paper recommends enabling farmers in semi-arid environments to practice and invest in FMNR for long-term returns to food security.
Description
Research Article
Keywords
Farmer managed natural regeneration, Food consumption score, Food security, Ghana