Livestock ownership and household food security in Northern Ghana: is there a nexus?

Food insecurity and poverty have been widely reported in many regions of the world, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa. Livestock ownership by rural farming households has been considered as one of the key interventions to overcome food insecurity constraints. However, empirical evidence to support such hypothesis is inadequate in agricultural and development literature for farm-level policy implications. This study examined the nexus between livestock ownership and household food security using cross-sectional data collected from rural farming households in northern Ghana. The instrumental variable two-stage least squares (IV-2sls) method, which corrects for self-selection bias and endogeneity caused by observed and unobserved household factors, was used to quantify the effect of ownership of livestock on food security. The findings revealed that ownership of livestock was influenced by a combination of socioeconomic and farm-specific factors. The empirical results also showed that owning livestock significantly improves household food security. As a result, interventions that build households’ capacity for livestock production and management will consequently enhance household food security.