Export Performance and Investment Behaviour of Firms in Ghana

From the theoretical literature a strong relationship between export performance and investment behaviour at the firm level is expected. A 2003 survey of 100 Ghanaian enterprises is used to analyse the factors that influence the investment and exporting behaviour of firms using a simultaneous equation model to allow for the endogeneity of investment and exporting. In addition, the different factors that influence the investment and export decisions in different sectors are investigated. However, no significant positive relationship between exporting and investment could be found. There seems rather to be a negative association, which might be explained by constraints in the access to capital. On the other hand there are several factors that work in the same direction, for example, younger firms, larger firms and more efficient firms are more likely to invest and more likely to export. --

Responding to Economic Shocks in Ghana: The Agricultural Sector as a Social Safety Net

The objective of this paper is to document, assess and characterize the role Ghana's agriculture has played as a safety net when the urban labor market suffered economic shocks. The study explores how agriculture influences non-agricultural dependent households. Specific attention is given to the implicit value of the informal insurance role that rural households play in supporting family members who lose jobs acquired after migrating to urban areas. The paper analyses Ghanaian agriculture's social security role in the late 1980s and 1990s. This well documented period in Ghanaian economic literature, coincides with both natural and macro policy shocks and the policy measures taken to cope with the shocks.Ghana, labor, migration, rural development, safety nets, Community/Rural/Urban Development, Food Security and Poverty, Labor and Human Capital,

Ghana Integrated to the World Economy: Focus on Ghana-UK-Germany Trade Linkage Model

International Relations/Trade,

Brokering Development: Enabling Factors for Public-Private-Producer Partnerships in Agricultural Value Chains. Summary of Ghana case study

This is a summary of the Ghana Country Report, which was written by Daniel Bruce Sarpong and Henry Anim-Somuah, based on research carried out in 2014 in association with the Institute of Development Studies (IDS) as part of an IFAD-funded programme on the role of PPPs in agriculture. It is one of the four IFAD project-supported Public-Private-Producer Partnerships analysed for the research report ‘Brokering Development: Enabling Factors for Public-Private-Producer Partnerships in Agricultural Value Chains’. The report syntheses the four case studies and discuss the findings on how PPPPs in agricultural value chains can be designed and implemented to achieve more sustained increases in income for smallholder farmers and broader rural development

Climate Change and Agricultural Policy Processes in Ghana

This paper examines agriculture-climate change policy discussions in Ghana in the context of, on the one hand, increasing international interest and activity around climate change and agriculture, and on the other, concerns over whether climate policy and funding priorities are aligned to domestic development priorities. The paper poses the following questions: What are the contested areas and dividing lines in policy discussions and practices around climate change, which actors are supporting different viewpoints, and what traction do they have in the types of interventions that are being promoted?DfI

Household Health and Cocoa Production: A Baseline Survey of Smallholder Farming Households in Western Region, Ghana

Background Chronic illness and premature mortality from malaria, water-borne diseases, and respiratory illnesses have long been known to diminish the welfare of individuals and households in developing countries. Previous research has also shown that chronic diseases among farming populations suppress labor productivity and agricultural output. As the illness and death toll from HIV/AIDS continues to climb in most of sub-Saharan Africa, concern has arisen that the loss of household labor it causes will reduce crop yields, impoverish farming households, intensify malnutrition, and suppress growth in the agricultural sector. If chronic morbidity and premature mortality among individuals in farming households have substantial impacts on household production, and if a large number of households are affected, it is possible that an increase in morbidity and mortality from HIV/AIDS or other diseases could affect national aggregate output and exports. If, on the other hand, the impact at the household farm level is modest, or if relatively few households are affected, there is likely to be little effect on aggregate production across an entire country. Which of these outcomes is more likely in West Africa is unknown. Little rigorous, quantitative research has been published on the impacts of AIDS on smallholder farm production, particularly in West Africa. The handful of studies that have been conducted have looked mainly at small populations in areas of very high HIV prevalence in southern and eastern Africa. Conclusions about how HIV/AIDS, and other causes of chronic morbidity and mortality, are affecting agriculture across the continent cannot be drawn from these studies. In view of the importance of agriculture, and particularly smallholder agriculture, in the economies of most African countries and the scarcity of resources for health interventions, it is valuable to identify, describe, and quantify the impact of chronic morbidity and mortality on smallholder production of important crops in West Africa. One such crop is cocoa. In Ghana, cocoa is a crop of national importance that is produced almost exclusively by smallholder households. In 2003, Ghana was the world’s second-largest producer of cocoa. Cocoa accounted for a quarter of Ghana’s export revenues that year and generated 15 percent of employment. The success and growth of the cocoa industry is thus vital to the country’s overall social and economic development. Study Objectives and Methods In February and March 2005, the Center for International Health and Development of Boston University (CIHD) and the Department of Agricultural Economics and Agribusiness (DAEA) of the University of Ghana, with financial support from the Africa Bureau of the U.S. Agency for International Development and from Mars, Inc., which is a major purchaser of West African cocoa, conducted a survey of a random sample of cocoa farming households in the Western Region of Ghana. The survey documented the extent of chronic morbidity and mortality in cocoa growing households in the Western Region of Ghana, the country’s largest cocoa growing region, and analyzed the impact of morbidity and mortality on cocoa production. It aimed to answer three specific research questions. (1) What is the baseline status of the study population in terms of household size and composition, acute and chronic morbidity, recent mortality, and cocoa production? (2) What is the relationship between household size and cocoa production, and how can this relationship be used to understand the impact of adult mortality and chronic morbidity on the production of cocoa at the household level? The study population was the approximately 42,000 cocoa farming households in the southern part of Ghana’s Western Region. A random sample of households was selected from a roster of eligible households developed from existing administrative information. Under the supervision of the University of Ghana field team, enumerators were graduate students of the Department of Agricultural Economics and Agribusiness or employees of the Cocoa Services Division. A total of 632 eligible farmers participated in the survey. Of these, 610 provided complete responses to all questions needed to complete the multivariate statistical analysis reported here

Household health and cocoa production: a baseline survey of smallholder farming households in Western Region, Ghana

This repository item contains a single issue of the Health and Development Discussion Papers, an informal working paper series that began publishing in 2002 by the Boston University Center for Global Health and Development. It is intended to help the Center and individual authors to disseminate work that is being prepared for journal publication or that is not appropriate for journal publication but might still have value to readers

ADAPTIVE CAPACITIES OF FARMERS TO CLIMATE CHANGE ADAPTATION STRATEGIES AND THEIR EFFECTS ON RICE PRODUCTION IN THE NORTHERN REGION OF GHANA

This study estimated the adaptive capacities of farmers to climate change adaptation strategies and their effects on rice production in the Northern Region of Ghana. The adaptive capacities of rice farmers were estimated quantitatively and categorized into high, moderate and low adaptive capacities. Double logarithmic regression model of Cobb-Douglas production function was used to quantity the effects of adaptive capacities of farmers on rice production. On the average, the farmers interviewed are moderately adaptive to climate change. Also, high adaptive farmers obtain nine more bags of 50 kg bag of paddy rice than farmers with low adaptive capacities. Therefore, the more a farmer has the ability to adjust to climate change, the more the number of bags of rice he or she obtains. Rice farmers should be empowered through better extension services in order to attain high adaptive capacity status so as to help them obtain more rice output

Measuring sustainability of conservation and conventional practices in maize production in Ghana

Scientists and researchers worldwide have recommended Conservation Agriculture as one that has the potential to promote sustainability in agriculture. This paper attempts to measure and compare the economic, social, and environmental sustainability of both conservation and conventional practices used for maize production in the northern region of Ghana employing the Multi-attribute Value Theory (MAVT) approach.Results of the study reveal minimum tillage and the combined use of minimum tillage and integrated organic-inorganic fertilizer application as sustainable practices scoring a minimum of 0.5 and above for the three pillars (economic, social, and environmental) of sustainability. Despite these scores, the z-test of difference in means of the conservation practices and conventional ones were all insignificant, indicating that the conservation practices in use were not different from the conventional ones in terms of their contribution to sustainable maize production. Technical assistance and training that aids in ensuring the appropriate application of conservation practices should be ensured if the goal of sustainability is to be realized