CROP CHOICES AND THEIR EFFECT ON THE LIVELIHOODS OF SMALLHOLDER IRRIGATION FARMING HOUSEHOLDS IN THE UPPER EAST REGION, GHANA

Abstract

Considering the limited availability of irrigation facilities, farmers make choices on the crops to cultivate to maximize use of irrigation water and land. Using primary data sourced from 390 households in the Upper East, this study applied the multinomial endogenous treatment effect model and investigated the factors that influence households' crop choices and its effects on their livelihoods. The results showed that cereals were the main crops cultivated by the households in the rainy season. Other crops also cultivated in the rainy season included legumes or combination of cereals, legumes, and vegetables. However, in the dry season, the main crops cultivated by the households were vegetables. Other crops cultivated in the dry season included cereals or a combination of cereals, legumes, and vegetables. The results from the multinomial endogenous treatment effect model revealed that household size, cost of fertilizer, farm size and use of irrigation significantly influenced households' decision to cultivate cereals and legumes alone in the rainy season. While households that cultivated a combination of cereals, legumes and vegetables were influenced by household size, total land size, cost of irrigation, cost offertilizer/kg, type of irrigation scheme and farm size. In the dry season, total land size, cost of irrigation/acre, cost of fertilizer/kg, cost of herbicide/lit er, farm size, distance to farm and irrigation frequency influenced households' decision to cultivate cereals, while households that cultivated all the three categories of crops had distance tofarm, cost of irrigation/acre, cost of herbicide/liter and type of irrigation scheme to be the significant factors. Age, household size, cost of fertilizer/kg, farm size and type of irrigation scheme influenced livelihoods in the rainy season. However, farm size, distance to farm, cost of fertilizer/kg and household size were the determining factors during the dry season. The study recommends that households should intensify the cultivation of cereals as the main crops during both rainy and dry season but they should diversify by integrating legumes and vegetables especially in the dry season to maximize their Income.