ADOPTION OF INTERRELATED SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURAL PRACTICES AMONG SMALLHOLDER FARMERS IN GHANA

Abstract

Serious attention should be given to the low adoption rates of what appears to be relatively simple sustainable agricultural practices (SAPs) that have the potential to protect the environment, enrich soil nutrients, restrict the depletion of essential ecosystem resources and increase farm productivity. Using primary data from 320 sampled agricultural households in two districts of Northern Ghana, multivariate probit (MVP) and zero-truncated Poisson models were applied to identify the determinants of SAP adoption and adoption intensity, respectively. From the MVP analysis, the study found that some SAP components are complementary, while others are substitutes. Furthermore, the results of the MVP regression indicate that non-farm income, livestock ownership, pest and disease prevalence, farmers’ experience of erosion, farmers’ perception of poor soil fertility, participation in field demonstration, membership of saving groups, access to agricultural credit, plot ownership, and distance to the agricultural input market are important determinants of adoption of SAP. With zero-truncated Poisson, the study found that factors such as farm size, participation in field demonstration, ownership of livestock and access to agricultural credit significantly influenced the intensity of SAP adoption. The study therefore recommended that policies should target institutional and plot-specific characteristics to improve and intensify the adoption of SAPs as they condition the need for adoption and the extent of adoption.