Gender, agricultural commercialization, and food security in Ghana

Using survey and qualitative data from four districts in northern and southern Ghana, this chapter contributes to the longstanding debate about the association between agricultural commercialization and household food security in a country characterized by long-term smallholder-dominated agricultural commercialization based on a household production system. The chapter confirms the findings of existing literature in establishing that, across varying agroecological settings, the lion’s share of land is controlled by men, and that women’s commercialization capacity in terms of the scale of production is much lower than men’s. The chapter’s distinct contribution is to show that a combination of several factors, namely agroecology, gender, and choice of measurement indicators are implicated in the food security outcomes of agricultural commercialization. In the more commercialized, matrilineal forest zones of southern Ghana, no clear gender-based crop segmentation was evident. In the less commercialized, patrilineal, and drier northern zone, however, clear differences in commercialization pathways were identified, with women being less represented in relatively more lucrative pathways.