Methodological Problems in Food System Research in the West African Region

This Chapter highlights methodological problems in food system research in West Africa. It historicizes the phenomenon of food insecurity from within the context of southern countries structural dependency. It is underscored that the region’s agro-ecological zones exhibit great varieties in their farm system characteristics and levels of integration into the market. This plethoric vista is compounded even further by the diversity of national policy contexts which themselves are markedly shifting with profound inconsistencies over time. Onerous challenges therefore go with any effort aimed at the fashioning of efficacious, cross-cutting research instruments and methods for the evaluation of agricultural policy outcomes across the region. This situation dictated the imperative for the interpretative mode of inquiry adopted in the book.