Emelia Guo^1,, Joseph Saa-Dittoh², Agnes Atia Apusigah³

Ghana’s food security situation is acknowledged to have improved in recent years, nonetheless, food insecurity still persists in some parts of Ghana, with the northern regions including the Upper West hosting the highest proportion of food insecure households. This situation is due partly to domestic agricultural production. As such, study sought to find out the major factors influencing agricultural production and consequently food security. Five sampled communities out of fifteen were randomly selected for Focus Group Discussion (FGDs) to gather data. These communities were: Tokaali, Manwe, Jeffisi, Sakai and Lawra-Yagtuuri. Furthermore, Kredjcie and Morgan’s (1970) sample size determination Table was used to select a total of 341 smallholder farmers based on each community’s population. From the study, all the respondents (100%) in the study indicated that food security is influenced by the weather/climate conditions of the area, whereas farming methods were identified as the next major factor influencing food security in the region according to smallholder farmers (98.5%) in the study. In addition, land allocation (85.0%) and government policies (74.8%) were also revealed to be contributory factors to food security by smallholder farmers in the region as well as some other factors including infestation representing 2.6 percent of respondents.

food security, smallholder farmers, agricultural production