Perspectives on Food Security Politics in Ghana

Abstract

An understanding of the politics of food security resides in the language used by food policy stakeholders in framing affiliated concepts. The study of their perspectives is crucial to food security as these actors govern what constitutes a food security challenge in a food insecure context. With the ‘triple-A’ approach to food security, and a Gramscian theory of power, this thesis analysed the frequency of how stakeholders outlined food security in Ghana. The analysis of publicly-available documents and interview transcripts teases out the contest of ideas in food security. Frequency gives way to the level of importance ‘triple-A’ dimensions of food security have in governance. Availability of food and supply-side solutions are the hegemonic ideologies. This dispossesses the importance of other parts to food security, namely food adequacy. The absence of food adequacy in dialogues ties in with the emergence of assailants to nutritional consumption in Ghana, transnational fast food corporations.