Purpose The purpose of this paper is to understand the impact of participation in sustainable agricultural intensification practices (SAIPs) on household food security status in Northwestern Ghana. Design/methodology/approach The study utilised the Household Food Insecurity Access Scale (HFIAS) indicator for the measurement of food access data from 168 households in ten communities from the Northwestern region of Ghana for the analyses. Households were categorised into participating households (treatment) and non-participating households (control). The endogenous treatment effects model was employed to evaluate the impact of participation in SAIPs training on food insecurity access scale. Findings The results show that participation in SAIPs training lowers, on average, the household food insecurity access by 2.95 points, approximately an 11 per cent reduction in HFIAS score. Other significant factors found to influence household food insecurity access scale are age of household head, experience in farming, total acres owned by household, income level of the household and occupation of the head of the household. Research limitations/implications The training programme of participation in SAIPs has massive implications for food security, rural economy and farmers’ livelihoods. However, due to the unique conditions prevailing in Northwestern Ghana, the findings of this research are limited in terms of their generalisability. Future research direction in the area of SAIPs trainings and impact study replications in all qualifying rural food production areas in Ghana, which are susceptible to household food insecurity, will provide a national picture of the efficacy of SAIPs trainings on household food insecurity. Practical implications A proven means to decrease natural resource degradation, increase crops yields, and increase subsistence farmers’ income, and food security is an important intervention to resolve the seasonal food shortage, which last for five months in a typical year for agro-food-dependent farming communities in Northwestern Ghana. Social implications Ensuring household food security improvement and environmental sustainability will help improve living standards of food producers and reduce the adverse social challenges associated with food insecure communities such as health problems due to food deficiencies, social inequalities, environmental pollution and natural resource degradation in Northwestern Ghana. Originality/value The contribution of this paper is the novel thought and approach to examine the impact of the SAIPs trainings on household food security in Northwestern Ghana using the household food insecurity access scale indicator. The study also examined the factors that affect household food security using the endogenous treatment model, which also evaluates the impact of the training programme on the outcome variable.

This study assessed the effect of off-farm income on maize farmers' responses to climate change in the Tolon district of Northern Region of Ghana. Using multi-stage sampling technique and semi-structured questionnaires, 150 maize farmers from five communities were interviewed. Heckman's treatment effect model was used. The result showed that majority had off-farm income that they received from trading. Furthermore, off-farm income has a significant effect on adoption of adaptation strategies. The majority of the farmers had perceived changes in the climate over the past decades and adaptation strategies practiced included changing planting date, changing crop variety, diversifying crop type, mixed cropping, and keeping animals alongside crop cultivation. Based on the findings from this study, government should provide enabling environment that will create and increase opportunities for farmers to engage in other income-generating activities that will provide them with additional income to procure necessary inputs and tools for appropriate response to the ongoing climate change problem.

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