Data from: Food and nutrient gaps in rural Northern Ghana: does production of smallholder farming households support adoption of food-based dietary guidelines?

Food-based dietary guidelines (FBDGs) provide guidance to policy makers,
the private sector and consumers to redesign food systems and to improve
diets of vulnerable populations. As appropriate FBDGs are based on the
actual dietary patterns and their costs, it is assumed that the
recommended foods are available, affordable and acceptable for the
population under study. Using quantitative dietary intake data of young
children in rural Northern Ghana, we developed local FBDGs and studied
whether these are supported by the diversity and quantity of the
production of a household among 329 households. We found that 40% of rural
Northern Ghanaian infants and young children were stunted and their
nutrient intakes were far below the recommendations: the probability of
adequacy for most nutrient intakes was less than 50%. At household level,
the developed FBDGs were, on average, unable to sufficiently cover the
household requirements for fat (60.4% of recommended nutrient intake
(RNI)), calcium (34.3% RNI), iron (60.3% RNI), vitamin A (39.1% RNI),
vitamin B12 (2.3% RNI) and vitamin C (54.6% RNI). This implies that even
when these FBDGs are fully adopted the requirements for these nutrients
will not be met. In addition, the nutrient needs and food needs (according
to the developed FBDGs) of a household were only marginally covered by
their own food production. The food production of over half the households
supplied insufficient calcium (75.7%), vitamin A (100%), vitamin B12
(100%) and vitamin C (77.5%) to cover their needs. The food production of
about 60% of the households did not cover their required quantities of
grains and legumes and none covered their required quantities of
vegetables. Further analysis of the food gaps at district and national
level showed that sufficient grains were available at both levels (267%
and 148%, respectively) to meet requirements; availability of legumes was
sufficient at district level (268%) but not at national level (52%); and
vegetables were insufficient at both levels (2% and 49%, respectively).
Diversifying household food production is often proposed as a means to
increase the diversity of foods available and thereby increasing dietary
diversity of rural populations. We found that the diversity of the
production of a household was indeed positively related with their food
and nutrient coverage. However, the diversity of the production of a
household and their food and nutrient coverage were not related with
children’s dietary diversity and nutrient adequacy. Our results show that
the production of a households does not support the adoption of FBDGs in
rural Northern Ghana, especially for vegetables. This suggests that the
promotion of FBDGs through nutrition education or behaviour change
communications activities alone is insufficient to lead to improvements in
diets. Additional strategies are needed to increase the food availability
and accessibility of the households, especially that of fruits and
vegetables, such as diversification of the crops grown, increased
production of specific crops and market-based strategies.