Research Article
From Availability to Utilisation: Does Staple Food Production Reduce Child Stunting in the ECOWAS Countries
Eruba Dimgba,
Christopher Ifeanyi Ezekwe*
Issue:
Volume 11, Issue 6, December 2026
Pages:
227-237
Received:
14 October 2026
Accepted:
26 October 2026
Published:
9 November 2026
DOI:
10.11648/j.ijae.20261106.11
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Abstract: Staple food production is widely promoted as a pathway to food security in West Africa, yet child stunting remains high across the region. In this light, we examine whether staple food production reduces child stunting in ECOWAS countries, shifting the analysis from food availability to food utilisation. We use panel data for 10 ECOWAS countries, including Benin, Burkina Faso, and Côte d'Ivoire. Ghana, Guinea, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal and Togo over 2001-2024. We measure staple food production by yields of five crops (cassava, rice, maize, millet, and sorghum) and include budgetary allocation to agriculture as a policy variable. Cross-sectional dependence, unit root, and cointegration tests confirm a long-run relationship among the variables. The model is estimated as a panel autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) model, and the Hausman test favours the pooled mean group (PMG) estimator. The results show that higher cassava and maize yields significantly reduce child stunting in the long run. Similarly, budgetary allocation to agriculture significantly reduces child stunting in the long run. Rice and sorghum yields, by contrast, are weakly and positively associated with stunting, and millet has no significant effect. In the short run, none of the variables has a significant average effect on child stunting. The country-level estimates also differ widely, as the same crop can raise stunting in one country and lower it in another. These findings partly support the food availability decline theory. The amount of food produced matters, as do the types of food produced and whether they enter children’s diets. In West Africa, increasing output alone is therefore unlikely to achieve SDG target 2.2 unless production policies are also linked to food access and utilisation. Given these findings, we recommend that national governments and ECOWAS, through the ECOWAP and CAADP frameworks, prioritise cassava and maize productivity by increasing farmers’ access to improved and biofortified varieties of these crops, such as vitamin A cassava and maize, along with fertiliser and extension services.
Abstract: Staple food production is widely promoted as a pathway to food security in West Africa, yet child stunting remains high across the region. In this light, we examine whether staple food production reduces child stunting in ECOWAS countries, shifting the analysis from food availability to food utilisation. We use panel data for 10 ECOWAS countries, i...
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