Farmers Perception and Adaptation to Climate Change: An Estimation of Willingness to Pay

This paper assesses farmers’ perception and adaptation to climate change to enhance policy towards tackling the challenges climate change poses to the farmers in Ghana. With regards to farmers’ perception and methods of adaptation, majority of the farmers perceived increase in temperature and decrease in rainfall pattern. Farmers’ level of adaptation was found to be relatively high with majority of the farmers using changing planting dates, different crop varieties, soil conservation and water harvesting as the major adaptation measures to climate change impacts. However, access to water, high cost of adaptation, lack of information, lack of knowledge on adaptation, insecure property rights, insufficient access to inputs and lack of credits were identified as the major barriers to adaptation. The probit regression estimation results indicated that the probability of willingness to pay for climate change mitigation policies increases with age, years of education and ownership of farm land.Perception, adaptation, climate change, willingnessto pay, probit regression, Agricultural and Food Policy, Farm Management, Production Economics, Productivity Analysis, GA, IN,

Productivity of hired and family labour and determinants of technical inefficiency in Ghana's fish farms

This paper examines the productivity of hired and family labour and determinants of technical inefficiency of fish farms in Ghana. A modified Cobb-Douglas stochastic frontier production function which accounts for zero usage of family and hired labour is employed on cross-sectional data of 150 farmers collected in 2007. The results reveal that family labour, hired labour, feed, seed, land, other cost and extension visit have reasserting influence on fish farm production. Findings also show that family and hired labour used for fish farming production in Ghana may be equally productive. The combined effects of operational and farm specific factors (age, experience, land, gender, pond type and education) influence technical inefficiency although individual effects of some variables may not be significant. Mean technical efficiency is estimated to be 79 percent. Given the present state of technology and input level, the possibility of enhancing production can be achieved by reducing technical inefficiency by 21 percent through adoption of practices of the best fish farm. --Ghana,fish farms,technical inefficiency,hired and family labour,stochastic frontier.

IMPACT OF CROP PRODUCTIVITY ON POVERTY AMONG FARM HOUSEHOLDS IN GHANA

Ghana Poverty Reduction Strategy I & II sought to increase crop productivity to reduce high poverty incidence in farm sector, but the magnitude of impact of the productivity on poverty is not present in all agro-ecological zones in Ghana. The aim of the study is to estimate poverty headcount ratio, poverty gap and poverty severity, and link crop productivity to poverty according to agroecology subject to a two-step instrumental variable regression technique using Pseudo Panel data from the Ghana Living Standards Survey (GLSS rounds 5 & 6). Farmers’ poverty headcount ratio, poverty gap, and poverty severity reduced from 57%, 25%, and 14% in 2005 to 37%, 14%, and 7% in 2013 respectively. The result further indicates that 1% growth in crop productivity reduces the probability of poverty headcount ratio, poverty gap and poverty severity by 0.28%, 0.38% and 0.75% respectively in all agro-ecological zones. Additionally, the paper shows that education, livestock and remittance income reduces poverty, while household size and great distance to access water increase poverty differently from agro-ecology. The study recommends rapid crop productivity growth by prioritizing technology adoption and institutional coordination to suit agro-ecological conditions among the poor, illiterate and non-partisan

Smallholder Cocoa Farmers Access to On/Off-Farm Support Services and its Contribution to Output in the Eastern Region of Ghana

It has been established that smallholder farmers have minimal access to various support services that would have otherwise enabled them to increase their output levels. The focus of this paper is to identify and quantify the impact of various support services on the production levels of cocoa in the Eastern region of Ghana. A cross sectional survey of 190 cocoa farmers was obtained using a two-stage sampling technique (purposive and random). Descriptive statistics and an OLS regression model were used to analyse and discuss the results of the study. The various support services identified included labour services, financial services, technical assistance, farmer group support services, Research and Development (R&D) institutional support services, extension services and input support services. The services that significantly influenced output levels of cocoa were extension services, labour supply and technical assistance, among other variables including farm size and quantity of agrochemical used. It is recommended that access to these support services be improved in order to realise an increase in output for the smallholder cocoa farmer

A Stochastic Production Investigation of Fish Farms in Ghana

This paper considers the stochastic production frontier approach to analyse the technical efficiency and its determinants of fish farms in Ghana using a cross-section data of 150 farms. It considers the explicit effects of family and hired labour on production by setting the log-value of the zero-observation of these two sources of labour to zero with dummy variables. Results demonstrate that expected elasticities of mean output with respect to all input variables are positive and significant. Findings also show that family and hired labour used for fish farming in Ghana may be equally productive. Fish farms in Ghana are revealed to be characterised by technology with increasing return to scale. The combined effects of operational and farm specific factors are found to influence efficiency. The study further reveals that inclusion of interaction between some exogenous variables in the inefficiency model is significant in explaining the variation in efficiency. Results also suggest that small pond operators are more efficient than farms with large ponds. Mean technical efficiency is estimated to be 78 percent

Farmers Perception and Adaptation to Climate Change: An Estimation of Willingness to Pay

This paper assesses farmers’ perception and adaptation to climate change to enhance policy towards tackling the challenges climate change poses to the farmers in Ghana. With regards to farmers’ perception and methods of adaptation, majority of the farmers perceived increase in temperature and decrease in rainfall pattern. Farmers’ level of adaptation was found to be relatively high with majority of the farmers using changing planting dates, different crop varieties, soil conservation and water harvesting as the major adaptation measures to climate change impacts. However, access to water, high cost of adaptation, lack of information, lack of knowledge on adaptation, insecure property rights, insufficient access to inputs and lack of credits were identified as the major barriers to adaptation. The probit regression estimation results indicated that the probability of willingness to pay for climate change mitigation policies increases with age, years of education and ownership of farm land

Productivity and constraints analysis of commercial tilapia farms in Ghana

This study examined the factors affecting productivity and constraints of commercial tilapia farms in the Dangme West District of the Greater Accra Region of Ghana. Primary data was obtained from 41 tilapia farms using multistage sampling. The data was then analyzed using descriptive statistics and regression analysis, and the agreements within ranked constraints was assessed. The empirical results revealed that the tilapia farmers in the three towns from which the data were collected, namely Achavanya, Kajanya and Dormeliam, produced a mean output of 74 kg per cage (6 m × 6 m × 3 m) as a productivity measure. Productivity of the cage farms were found to be positively affected by quantity of seed, feed and education level of managers; and negatively affected by cage size, labour and year of experience. Furthermore, the major constraints identified were high cost of inputs, lack of access to feed and credits and in adequate extension services and stealing of fish. The study suggests the need for supporting policies on inputs such as fingerlings and feed, and also providing education i.e. training to tilapia farmers. Efforts should also be made by financial institutions and NGOs to make credit easily available and accessible to commercial fish farmers so that they could cope with high cost of inputs

Fish Consumption Behaviour and Perception of Food Security of Low-Income Households in Urban Areas of Ghana

This paper assesses fish consumption behaviour and perception of fish food security of low-income households using three season survey data from 839 interviews in Ghana. The study profiles the types of fish consumed and employs a modified Cobb–Douglas function to examine the determinants of household expenditure on fish consumption, whilst adopting a 1–5 Likert scale to analyze the perception of fish food security. The results confirm that poor households prefer cheaper and small pelagic fish. The mean expenditure on fish consumption per week is estimated to be GHS 31.15 (Euro 4.94 ≅ 0.16). Additionally, it is demonstrated that marital status, religion, occupation, proximity to local market, and city of residence have a positive and significant influence, whilst level of income, seasonality of fish, and the interaction of religion and seasonality of fish demonstrate a negative and significant influence on fish expenditure. Finally, the paper reveals that the majority of households have the perception that fish is readily available and can be obtained throughout the year in good quality. However, households have varied opinions on accessibility of fish. The paper recommends that the government should support and enhance the value chains of small pelagic fish species since they are preferred by poor households