THE WELFARE IMPACT OF USAID-ADVANCE INTERVENTION PROGRAMME: EVIDENCE FROM ACDEP FACILITATION IN NORTHERN GHANA

Abstract

In response to the challenges of using traditional farming practices and in order to boost smallholder productivity on sustainable basis, many civil society organizations, NGOs and international donor agencies including USAID, under the auspices of its Agriculture Development and Value-Chain Enhancement (ADVANCE) project, has initiated many intervention programmes geared towards the development and dissemination of Good Agricultural Practices (GAPs). The study aimed at identifying the factors influencing participation in the USAID/ADVANCE value chain packages (GAPs and marketing strategies) and the impact on farm income and welfare of beneficiaries. The study used cross-sectional farm-level data collected from 673 farm households using a multiage sampling method from the three (former) northern regions of Ghana. It adopted the Multivariate Probit Model to analyze the factors influencing the adoption of the individual GAPs and marketing strategies as well as interdependency among them. The Poisson Data Count Regression was employed to identify the determinants of the intensity of adoption of GAPs. The propensity score matching (PSM) technique was used to estimate the welfare impacts of the ADVANCE intervention programme on the beneficiaries. The results indicate that farmers’ educational level, age, visits to demonstration farms, and extension services, were found to have a positive and significant influence on different components of GAPs and marketing strategies. However, gender had a positive effect on the adoption of row planting but negative on cooperative marketing. The intensity of adoption was also positively and significantly influenced by educational attainment, farm size, ownership of tricycle, workshop attendance, visit to demonstration farms, and extension service; it was negatively and significantly affected by age of the respondent, number of household members in school, and engagement in off-farm income. The study has also demonstrated that the ADVANCE project has had a positive and significant impact on farm households’ productivity, income and welfare. Finally, policies and development efforts focusing on increasing access to extension services, input and output markets are crucial to improving adoption of GAPs, and subsequently, to increasing farm productivity and welfare.