Paul Kwame Nkegbe

Does the Use of Mobile Phones by Smallholder Maize Farmers Affect Productivity in Ghana

ABSTRACT This study evaluates the effects of mobile technology on productivity and the channels of transmission of these effects. Using propensity score matching procedures, the results show that mobile phone ownership and use significantly improves agricultural productivity. Specifically, the mobile phone improves the productivity of user-farmers by at least 261.20 kg/ha per production season. Further, we find that phone ownership and use impacts productivity more than phone use only. The identified channels of effect are extension services, adoption of modern technology and market participation. These results have key policy implications for Ghana and developing economies at large.

Food expenditure and household welfare in Ghana

The main objective of this study was to investigate the determinants of household food expenditure and its effects on welfare. As a result of potential simultaneity between food expenditure and welfare, a simultaneous equations model was estimated using the two-stage least squares method. The findings confirm the theoretical and empirical evidences that households reduce the percentage share of their food expenditure as they become richer. Also, increases in the food budget share lead to a reduction in welfare. Different households which spent greater percentages of their incomes on food were as follows: female headed households; households headed by the aged; households whose heads had little or no formal education; households whose heads were married; smaller households; rural households; households in the forest and savannah belts; and households living farther from the nation’s capital. Also, welfare was greater for the following households: female headed households; households headed by the aged, households whose heads had formal education, smaller households, households who owned assets; households living in the urban centres, as well as those living closer to the nation’s capital. Households that must be targeted for support include male-headed households, households headed by the relatively young, larger households, rural households and households farther from the nation’s capital, including those in the savannah belt.

Adoption intensity of soil and water conservation practices by smallholders: evidence from Northern Ghana

Soil and water conservation practices are being promoted in Ghana as a way of sustainably managing the environment to support agricultural production. Despite the important role the adoption of the practices plays in conserving the environment, very few studies have been conducted to analyse the factors influencing their intensive adoption. This study analyses the determinants of intensity of adoption of soil and water conservation practices using data from a cross-section of smallholder producers in Northern Ghana. Count data models are used for the analysis. The empirical results show that access to information, social capital, per capita landholding and wealth play an important role in smallholder producers’ decision to intensively adopt soil and water conservation practices.

Effect of input credit on smallholder farmers’ output and income: Evidence from Northern Ghana

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of input credit on smallholder farmers’ output and income using Masara N’Arziki support project in Northern Ghana. Design/methodology/approach - A cross-sectional primary data set was used to estimate the effect of project participation on farm output, yield and income using propensity score matching (PSM) methods. Findings - The findings are that project participation is skewed towards experienced farmers with big-sized households and farms. The effect of project on outcomes is somewhat unsatisfactory in the sense that participation only raises output and yield, but not income. Research limitations/implications - The paper only examined the project effect on farm outcomes among smallholder farmers participating in the programme in just one operational area in the Northern region. Future research should consider all the operational areas for an informed generalisation of findings. Practical implications - Greater benefits to farmers from programme participation would require project management to review the contractual arrangement so that the high cost of input credit is significantly reduced. Originality/value - The paper applied the PSM to estimate the effect of project participation on farm output, yield and income among smallholder farmers which is non-existent in the literature on the study area, at least as far as we know. This paper can inform future policy on the direction and nature of support for smallholder farmers in Northern Ghana.

Farm credit access, credit constraint and productivity in Ghana: Empirical evidence from Northern Savannah ecological zone

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to examine farmers’ access to credit, credit constraint, and productivity in the Northern Savannah ecological zone of Ghana. Design/methodology/approach - Secondary data from the Ghana Feed the Future baseline survey involving a total sample of 2,968 farm households were used. The conditional mixed process (CMP) framework was applied to estimate access to credit, credit constraint, and productivity simultaneously. As a system estimator the CMP corrects for possible heterogeneity and sample selection bias. Findings - The results from the estimations revealed that age, literacy, farm non-mechanized equipment, and group membership were the variables influencing farmers’ access to credit. Credit constraint conditions were determined by household size, locality, group membership, and household durable assets. Finally, the results showed that productivity of farmers was dependent on marital status, household size, locality, farm size, commercialization, farm mechanized equipment, group membership, and household durable assets. Originality/value - This paper is the first, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, to use the CMP framework to jointly estimate access to credit, credit constraint, and productivity. The results indicate that estimating credit access and constraint models separately would have yielded biased estimates. Thus, this paper informs future research on farmers’ credit access, credit constraint, and productivity for informed policymaking.

Food security in the Savannah Accelerated Development Authority Zone of Ghana: an ordered probit with household hunger scale approach

BackgroundFood security has been observed to be severe in northern Ghana than any other area of the country. Though this has been acknowledged, few attempts have been made to curb the situation. One of such intervention areas resides in providing policy-based evidence to guide efforts in fighting this problem. This study employs an ordered probit model using data set from the baseline survey of the USAID’s Feed the Future programme in Ghana to estimate the determinants of food security in northern Ghana. We perform the analysis using a new indicator of food security—the household hunger scale. This measure is different from other household food insecurity indicators since it has been specifically developed and validated for cross-cultural use.ResultsThe estimates show that crop producers, multiple crop producers, yield and commercialization are key policy variables that determine food security. A key policy implication of this result is in tandem with one of the intermediate results of the Ghana Feed the Future Initiative which seeks to increase competitiveness of food value chains through increased productivity and market access.ConclusionsBased on the results, stakeholders should step up efforts to enhance productivity of farm households and provide necessary market infrastructure to boost commercialization, as these are fundamental to ensuring food security.

Inflation and interest rate movements in Ghana: trends and possible causal links

The relationship between inflation and interest rate has remained controversial in Ghana and this called for the investigation into the trends and causal links between the two variables. Monthly observations from 1995 to 2011 were used for analyses of trends, causality, cointegration and error correction model. The study reveals significant trends of variability over time with the trend of inflation being more volatile relative to interest rate. There is a two-way causal relationship between inflation and nominal interest rate and there exists also a long-run equilibrium relationship between the variables. The results suggest inflation in Ghana in the short-run depends on previous months inflation rate and past interest rates, but not on current interest rate. The impulse response shows past inflation rates and nominal interest rates account for macroeconomic instability in the economy. It is recommended long-run policy measures be used to promote macroeconomic stability.

Soil and water conservation practices and smallholder farmer multi-activity technical efficiency in northern Ghana

A greater number of the people of northern Ghana are peasants and poor, depending heavily on natural resources for their livelihoods. The poverty is caused partly by inadequate water availability and deteriorating soil conditions. As a result, various organizations promote the use of soil and water conservation practices in the area, but the link between the use of the practices and farmer multi-activity technical efficiency is yet to be shown empirically. The current study thus investigates this link using data from 445 households in the area. The study uses a stochastic input distance function and the results show adoption of conservation practices exerts positive effect on technical efficiency. The results further reveal significant diversification economies in smallholder production with complementarity effects in crop-livestock and livestock-off-farm combinations, and substitutability effects in crop-off-farm combination thereby highlighting the need for a holistic development of both the farm and off-farm sectors. Keywords: Soil and Water Conservation, Technical Efficiency, Diversification Economies, Instrumental Variables, Northern Ghana

Assessing the technical efficiency of maize production in northern Ghana: The data envelopment analysis approach

Abstract Maize is a major source of food and cash for smallholder farmers. However, average yield in Ghana is less than a third of the achievable yield and thus the need to close this gap by improving the technical efficiency of farming households through employing the right combination of productive resources to achieve food sustainability. This study used the input-oriented data envelopment analysis to examine the technical efficiency of maize production in northern Ghana1 using cross-sectional data for the 2011/2012 cropping season. The mean technical efficiency was 77%, giving credence to the existence of production inefficiency. Technically, efficient farmers used an average of 395.80 kg of chemical fertilizer, 27.04 kg of seed, 4.04 l of weedicides and hired labour of three persons to produce a yield of 2.34 tons/ha of maize. Largely, maize production exhibited increasing returns to scale. Agricultural mechanization and level of formal education did not have positive effects on technical efficiency, whereas agricultural extension had a positive effect on technical efficiency. Technical efficiency in maize production could be improved through informal and non-formal educational platforms where farmers without formal education learn improved cultivation practices. The agricultural extension department should be strengthened to provide effective extension services to farmers to improve on their technical efficiency. Animal and other non-mechanized power sources are complementary technologies and as such should be allowed to co-exist in Ghanaian agriculture.

Poverty and malaria morbidity in the Jirapa District of Ghana: A count regression approach

Abstract Malaria potentially affects everyone in the tropics and sub-tropics, however, the poor and vulnerable are worse affected mainly due to the socio-economic constraints that confront them. In Ghana, the Upper West Region, which is the poorest, is one of the worse affected in terms of malaria burden. Given social and economic factors directly relate to malaria morbidity, global malaria control strategy unfortunately has not particularly targeted the effects of socio-economic deprivation on the disease morbidity and control. This study investigates the linkages between poverty and malaria morbidity using count data models, with Jirapa District in the Upper West Region of Ghana as the study area. Empirical results confirm the presence of poverty in the study area as more than half of households depend on heads whose incomes are below the poverty line of US