Enhancing food production to prevent households from food insecurity in rural Burkina Faso: does land ownership matter?

Purpose - This paper assesses the effect of land ownership on household food security through its productivity enhancement effect in rural Burkina Faso. Design/methodology/approach - As the link between land tenure security and productivity is indirect, the study relies on a complex mixed process regression model with robustness to assess the effect of land ownership on household productivity. Then, an instrumental variable (IV) approach is followed to investigate the association between household productivity and food security. The rural development program survey data collected from 1,892 households in 2017 are used. Findings - The complex mixed process estimation results are robust and show that land ownership has a positive effect on household productivity. From the IV results, it is found that productive households spend more on food, have a low share of expenditures on food and are less likely to experience severe food shortages, implying an improvement in their food security status. This highlights a positive association between land ownership and food security. Originality/value - Unlike previous studies that only focused on the effect of land ownership on land-related investments and agricultural productivity, this study deepens the analysis and sheds light on how land ownership, agricultural production and food security are related. It gives empirical evidence on the importance of land policies in the struggle against food insecurity in agrarian economies. Peer review - The peer review history for this article is available athttps://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-11-2021-0658.