Zinnah, Moses M. (author / University of Cape Coast, Ghana), Owens, Michelle (author), Okorley, Ernest L. (author / University of Cape Coast, Ghana), and Kwarteng, Joseph A. (author / University of Cape Coast, Ghana)
Format:
Proceedings
Publication Date:
2001-04-04
Published:
Ghana: Association for International Agricultural and Extension Education
Location:
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 138 Document Number: C20935
Notes:
Burton Swanson Collection, pages 273-280, from "Emerging trends in agricultural and extension education", AIAEE 2001, Proceedings of the 17th Annual Conference, April 4-7, 2001, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, USA
For most Ghanaians, the tenets of Pan-Africanism are remote principles that bear little relevance in daily life, in which kinship, linguistic, ethnic, and national affiliations are primary markers of identity. This presents challenges for repatriated Rastafarians from the Caribbean, United States, and Europe, who attempt to establish a home and a place within Ghanaian society while retaining Rastafarian ways of living and spiritual philosophies drawn from a Pan-African ethos.
15 pages, In spite of several strategies implemented to improve sorghum production in Ghana, average grain yield in farmers’ fields remains low and far below the estimated potential. The development of effective strategies requires continuous, in-depth understanding of production constraints as well as farmer preferences for crop traits. To this end, a participatory rural appraisal using focus group discussions, interviews with semi-structured questionnaires and preference ranking was carried out among 122 smallholder sorghum farmers in the Upper East Region of Ghana. Majority (91%) of respondents were engaged in farming with more than half of their farm sizes allocated to sorghum cultivation. Drought, high cost of farm inputs and declining soil fertility were the top three constraints. Almost 42% of farmers described their soils as low in fertility. The most preferred traits by farmers were drought tolerance, high grain yield, earliness, grain quality as well as low fertilizer requirement. A better understanding of the perceptions of farmers and factors that limit the adoption of improved technology is important to guide policy towards the design of effective crop improvement and extension programmes. The study highlights the importance of breeding sorghum varieties with traits preferred by smallholder farmers that will lead to increased adoption of improved technology.
Amenumey, Felix K. (author), Greiman, Bradley C. (author), and Association for International Agricultural and Extension Education
Format:
Paper
Publication Date:
2009-05
Published:
Ghana
Location:
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 185 Document Number: D00437
Notes:
Pages 37-43 in the proceedings of the 25th annual meeting of the Association for International Agricultural and Extension Education in San Juan, Puerto Rico, May 24-28, 2009.
