The effect of groundnut processing infrastructure on access to nutritious diets in northern Ghana

Access to infrastructure is vital for boosting agricultural production and enhancing access to safe nutritious foods in the rural areas of low-and middle-income countries, where hunger and malnutrition remain rife. While studies have examined the welfare effects of agricultural production infrastructure, little is known about the contributions of agro-processing infrastructure to improved nutritional outcomes, especially in Ghana. This study investigates the effect of groundnut processing facilities on household and women’s dietary diversity in northern Ghana. Primary data were collected from 829 women engaged in the groundnut value chain. The results show limited access to groundnut processing infrastructure such as mechanized shelling, roasting and grinding machines, with less than two-thirds of the women living in communities where any of these facilities existed. Access to and intake of nutritious diets is poor, with only 45.2% of reproductive age women achieving the minimum dietary diversity for micronutrient adequacy. Using the instrumental variable (IV) Poisson and Probit estimators, the results reveal that access to processing infrastructure significantly contributes to improved dietary diversity of women and their households. Increased productivity, higher income from groundnut production and processing, enhanced women's control over income, and greater household expenditure on food were the critical pathways mediating the beneficial effects of processing infrastructure on dietary outcomes. The findings imply that scaling up investments in improved agro-processing infrastructure along the entire value chain can serve as a strategic lever for improving food and nutrition security in rural communities, and achieving inclusive and sustainable development outcomes.