diff --git a/meta-digi-dey/recipes-connectivity/openssh/openssh_%.bbappend b/meta-digi-dey/recipes-connectivity/openssh/openssh_%.bbappend
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..aeea9e976
--- /dev/null
+++ b/meta-digi-dey/recipes-connectivity/openssh/openssh_%.bbappend
@@ -0,0 +1,11 @@
+# Copyright (C) 2022 Digi International.
+
+# Don't create an empty openssh-dev package.
+#
+# When building an SDK (with populate_sdk), all '-dev' packages are
+# installed. And empty 'openssh-dev' package would pull in 'openssh-sshd'
+# package even if our image is only depending on 'openssh-sftp'.
+#
+# This causes a conflict with 'dropbear' server, which is only using
+# openssh-sftp.
+ALLOW_EMPTY:${PN}-dev = "0"