THE ROLE OF CONTRACT FARMING IN THE ADOPTION OF CLIMATE CHANGE COPING STRATEGIES BY CROP FARMERS IN THE NORTHERN REGION OF GHANAA

Abstract

This study examined the effect of contract farming on the adoption of climate change coping strategies by crop farmers in the Northern region of Ghana. It involved 230 crop farmers selected through multi-stage sampling procedure. Poisson and switching regression models were estimated to examine the effect of contract farming on climate change coping strategies and the determinants of contract farming as well as its effect on crop output, respectively. Majority of the farmers perceived that climate change was increasing, and as a result, crop outputs were reducing. The major coping strategies to climate change were spraying of farms, sowing in rows, mixed farming, mixed cropping and crop rotation. Contract farming had a positive and significant influence on the adoption of coping strategies. Other variables that were positive and significantly influenced the adoption of coping and adaptation strategies were age, marital status, land ownership and extension contact. Farmers' level of education was also significant but negative. Older farmers, male farmers, and farmers who had more contacts with extension and research staff had a higher probability of going into contract farming. Among the contract farmers, adoption of more coping strategies, hired labour and ploughing cost significantly and positively influenced crop output. Also, among the non-contract farmers, larger quantities of seed and ploughing cost were required to increase crop output. The study recommends that development actors should encourage farmers to enter into contract farming as it impacts positively on the adoption of coping strategies and for that matter crop output. As a matter of policy, various governments should encourage group/contract farming as was in the case of the MoFA led National Block Farming project.