Cost-minimizing food budgets in Ghana

Abstract

Attaining the daily required nutritional recommendations is a major challenge in Ghana where the average person earns about $1.89 per day. A linear programming diet model is used to determine the cheapest basket of food items that satisfy the recommended daily nutritional requirements of the average Ghanaian. Initial findings show that an average Ghanaian requires $0.36 per day to meet his daily nutritional needs. This would be met with a food basket made up of sorghum, yam, cassava, coconut and milk. With this food basket and the estimated food expenditure, the average person in Ghana would save about 40% of his/her daily food expenditure. Sensitivity analyses are also performed to test the robustness of the findings.   Key words: Developing countries, nutrition, minimum costs, linear programming.