The Urban Food Question in the Context of Inequality and Dietary Change: A Study of Schoolchildren in Accra

Abstract

Diets are changing globally, as agricultural and food systems have become globalised. Understanding how patterns of globalisation affect welfare is a key development question, but we know little about the way that the globalisation of food systems impacts different groups. This study explores food security and consumption among schoolchildren in Accra. We use a novel approach based on triangulation of primary data on food consumption and a synthesis of secondary literature on food trade, policy and urban food environment. Thus, we bridge a divide between micro-level analyses of food consumption and macro-level studies of food systems. We find that socio-economic status is a critical dimension, with poorer children more vulnerable to food insecurity and narrow dietary diversity. However, the consumption of packaged and processed foods, often sugar-rich and nutrient-poor, cuts across wealth groups. We argue that the urban food question today is defined by two intersecting phenomena: inequality and dietary change. The urban poor continue to face the fundamental challenge of adequate food access amidst a food environment that provides consumers with unhealthy and cheap food options. Therefore, food policy needs to regulate imports of cheap, unhealthy and enticing food.

Acknowledgements

This research has been made possible by the people who took part in the research activities in Ghana, in particular, the students of the schools in Accra and Tema. We acknowledge the work of Millicent Awuku, who worked with us as a research assistant while doing her PhD in Economics at the University of Ghana, Legon, and are grateful to the comments received by Dr Fiorella Picchioni, the anonymous referee and the editor. This research was funded by the Danish Strategic Research Council. The data are available from the authors upon request.

Notes

1. The GHI is compiled by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) combining four indicators: FAO prevalence of undernourishment, child stunting, child wasting and child mortality. The GHI is considered to be a good proxy of hidden hunger, linked to micronutrient imbalances.

2. It is recognised that the national statistics on food production and trade compiled by the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) are subject to errors. The quality of this data is especially low for poorer countries, where data gaps are filled with model-based estimations, which often differ substantially from actual production and trade volumes (Hawkesworth et al., 2010). These statistics may be useful to describe some broad patterns of food production and trade, but given their limitations, they should only be used in combination with other evidence.

3. Packaged food includes cooking ingredients, dairy products and baby food, snacks and staple foods.

4. On 19 January 2016, Ghana Web reports that the total revenue for the three most important export commodities – oil, gold and cocoa – has declined by 2.4 billion USD between 2014 and 2015.

5. Minimum teaching equipment and minimum school infrastructure are two World Bank’s Service Delivery Indicators (Molina & Martin, 2015) used to assess the delivery of education and health. Minimum teaching resources captures the availability of (i) whether a random classroom has a functioning blackboard and chalk, (ii) the share of students with pens, and (iii) the share of students with notebooks. Minimum infrastructure resources reflects the availability of (i) functioning toilets operationalised as being clean, private, and accessible (ii) sufficient light to read the blackboard from the back of the classroom. The indicators, operationalised as binary, are based on researchers’ observation of selected schools.

6. Classifying schools was preferable to classifying neighbourhoods due to lack of locality data and intra-locality heterogeneity (Maxwell et al., 2000), as well as the fact that children going to private schools tend not to live in the school area.

7. We considered the possibility that the teacher’s participation could introduce a bias towards higher-achieving pupils. However, respondents obtained a thank-you gift of pens and pencils, it was also possible teachers would prioritise children from more vulnerable backgrounds. Thus, overall it is hard to identify an overall bias.

8. It is an adapted FCS because we did not collect all data to calculate the full FCS. We have information on a smaller number of food items grouped in five food groups – fruit, vegetables, dairy, meat/fish, and sugar. Therefore, we did not calculate a score but instead used the continuum variable based on the weightings provided by WFP (2008).

9. Most children interviewed at Kanda Estate reported that they buy food from the food vendors across the road from the school, where there is also a minibus (trotro) station and there are more options.

10. Five children said that they do not receive chop money on a daily basis, and therefore they need to spread the available cash over two or three days. At Kanda Estate, the teachers told us that, if there is any left-over food from the School Feeding Programme in the primary schools (which are in the same buildings), they give it to children in JHS who struggle to buy their own food.

11. We note that the question has a subjective character and may have captured, in some cases, feeling hungry due to circumstantial lack of food rather than real lack of resources to acquire food.

12. The exact number of FanMilk street vendors is unknown because they are not employed by FanMilk, but considered to be independent vendors, fully operating in the informal economy. The structure of employment is similar to that becoming prominent in the gig economy: vendors are given equipment (so they are recognisable on the streets) and training by FanMilk but they are nonetheless treated as self-employed.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Danish Strategic Research Council [HAPFAM project].