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2. Do agricultural extension services promote adoption of soil and water conservation practices? evidence from northern Ghana
- Collection:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center (ACDC)
- Contributers:
- Danso-Abbeam, Gideon (author)
- Format:
- Journal article
- Publication Date:
- 2022-09-06
- Published:
- Netherlands: Elsevier B.V.
- Location:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 206 Document Number: D12801
- Journal Title:
- Journal of Agriculture and Food Research
- Journal Title Details:
- Vol. 10
- Notes:
- 10 pages, Agricultural environment in many developing economies has become increasingly unpredictable in recent decades as a result of climate change, increasing the risk of crop failure. Access to meaningful information is required to mitigate the negative effects of the changing environment. This study examined the impact of agricultural extension services on the adoption of soil and water conservation (SWC) practices using data obtained from farming households in Northern Ghana. A multivariate probit model was used to assess the simultaneous or/and substitution adoption of SWC practices, while endogenous switching probit (ESP) was used to estimate the impact of extension services on adoption of SWC practices to account for observed and unobserved heterogeneities. The results showed that most of the SWC practices were adopted jointly, and factors such as non-farm economic activites and farm size influence the adoption of SWC practices. Moreover, farmers who accessed agricultural extension services had a higher probability of adopting most of the SWC practices (crop rotation, contour ploughing and manure application), and those who did not benefit from extension services would have had an equally higher likelihood of adopting the SWC practices had they accessed the services. The findings of the study imply that enhancing agricultural extension services will reduce adoption gaps in SWC practices, and consequently reduce farmers’ exposure to climate-related agricultural production risks. With growing information and communication technologies, pluralistic extension service delivery that mixes governmental and private-sector-led approaches to extension operations to foster demand-driven extension delivery services are highly recommended.
3. An overview of agricultural extension in Ghana and Burkina Faso and implications for sustainable agriculture in West Africa
- Collection:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center (ACDC)
- Contributers:
- Santuah, Niagia (author), Abazaami, Joseph (author), Kaunza-nu-dem Millar, Katharine (author), and Amikuzuno, Joseph (author)
- Format:
- Journal article
- Publication Date:
- 2022-07-31
- Published:
- Nigeria: Academic Journals
- Location:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 205 Document Number: D12740
- Journal Title:
- Journal of Agricultural Extension and Rural Development
- Journal Title Details:
- Vol. 14, N.3
- Notes:
- 7 pages, Agricultural extension is the medium through which external agricultural technologies have been transferred to and transplanted in Africa to improve agricultural performance. Over a period of close to a century, different agricultural extension models have been proposed but their structure and content has virtually been the same: top-down, linear, non-participatory transfer of technology with no feedback loops for reverse diffusion. This presumably explains the poor performance of Africa’s agriculture and the scale of food security challenges facing the continent. In this review paper, we trace the history of agricultural extension and examine various agricultural extension delivery models to identify their major strengths and weaknesses, using Ghana and Burkina Faso as case studies. We then review the most recent literature in the field about the philosophy, scope, content, delivery, and outcomes of agricultural extension. The conclusion that agricultural extension has consistently remained out of sync with the needs and aspirations of stallholder farmers was reached. Smallholder farmers are now calling for new agricultural extension delivery models that are truly farmer-led, indigenous knowledge-based, context-specific, culturally-relevant and environmentally-sustainable to guarantee efficient farming systems into the future.
4. Using renewable energy to meet the energy needs of smallholder farmers: are there policies to promote adoption in Ghana?
- Collection:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center (ACDC)
- Contributers:
- Karbo, R. T. (author), Frewer, L. J. (author), Areal, F. (author), and Yu, E. (author)
- Format:
- Journal article
- Publication Date:
- 2022-06-30
- Published:
- Ghana: Council for Scientific and Industrial Research of Ghana
- Location:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 205 Document Number: D12764
- Journal Title:
- Ghana Journal of Agricultural Science
- Journal Title Details:
- Vol. 57, N.1
- Notes:
- 15 pages, Integrating renewable energy (RE) technologies into agriculture can contribute to attaining sustainable production. Farmers’ adoption of RE in agriculture can lead to substantial reductions in Greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions as well as providing alternative income sources for farmers, and reliable energy supplies for farms and households. Policies can facilitate, support, or encourage farmers’ adoption of RE. However, it is not clear what policies currently exist which facilitate or promote the adoption of RE technologies in Ghanaian agriculture. This paper aims to identify policies in Ghana that can facilitate the adoption of RE in agricultural production. A policy review was conducted to identify such policies, evaluate their potential impact on RE adoption, and suggest paths to enhance RE adoption by farmers. These policies are focused on two aspects: 1) promoting solar energy and 2) the conversion of agricultural waste to energy. Noting limitations including the underdevelopment of the RE sector and the lack of a central policy to promote RE utilization in Ghanaian agriculture, the review suggests that policymakers need to fully implement provisions of the Renewable Energy Act-(832) (2011) through the application of, for example, policy levers such as subsidies, tax exemptions, financing, and training potential end-users in the agricultural community.
5. Effects of information on smallholder irrigation farmers’ willingness to pay for groundwater protection
- Collection:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center (ACDC)
- Contributers:
- Alhassan, Mustapha (author), Gustafson, Christopher R. (author), and Schoengold, Karina (author)
- Format:
- Journal article
- Publication Date:
- 2022-01-14
- Published:
- United States: Wiley Online
- Location:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 204 Document Number: D12445
- Journal Title:
- Journal of Agricultural Economics
- Notes:
- 13 pages, In Ghana, groundwater, accessed through wells and boreholes, is generally unregulated and may be contaminated with pollutants including excess nitrates from agricultural chemical fertilizers. Yet, studies estimating how clean groundwater is valued are not available in Ghana. In addition, some research suggests that the pre-experiment information provided to survey respondents affects their valuation of an identical outcome. This paper estimates smallholder farmers’ preferences for groundwater protection using pre-experiment information focused on one of two outcomes: environment or health. The double-bounded contingent valuation (DBCV) approach is used to estimate willingness to pay (WTP) to protect groundwater quality. The estimation accounts for shift and anchoring effects, which are common issues with the DBCV method. The mean WTP from the health (environmental) information subsample is about US$19 (US$17) per acre, and the values are significantly different between the information conditions. The findings shed light on the importance of using precise information in eliciting WTP in a developing country setting.
6. The adoption problem is a matter of ft: tracing the travel of pruning practices from research to farm in Ghana’s cocoa sector
- Collection:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center (ACDC)
- Contributers:
- Adomaa, Faustina Obeng (author), Vellema, Sietze (author), Slingerland, Maja (author), and Asare, Richard (author)
- Format:
- Journal article
- Publication Date:
- 2022-01-11
- Published:
- USA: Springer
- Location:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 205 Document Number: D12650
- Journal Title:
- Agriculture and Human Values
- Journal Title Details:
- Iss. 39
- Notes:
- 15 pages, Good Agricultural Practices (GAPs) are central to sustainability standards and certifcation programmes in the global cocoa chain. Pruning is one of the practices promoted in extension services associated with these sustainability efforts. Yet concerns exist about the low adoption rate of these GAPs by smallholder cocoa farmers in Ghana. A common approach to addressing this challenge is based on creating enabling conditions and offering appropriate incentives. We use the concepts of inscription and afordance to trace the vertically coordinated travel of recommended pruning from research to extension and farming sites, and to describe how pruning is carried out diferently at each site. Our analysis suggests that enactments of pruning at the extension site reduce the number of options and space for interactions, and this constrains making the practice meaningful to farmers’ repertoires. The conventions guiding and legitimising actions at this site, reinforced by sustainability standards, certifcation schemes and associated inspections and audits, favour standardised recommendations and consequently narrow room for context-specifc diagnostics and adaptions. Therefore, we reframe the adoption problem as a matter of fitbetween different sites in the ‘agricultural research value chain’ embedded in the operational cocoa chain. Our contribution problematises the dominant framing of low adoption and highlights that the movement of pruning and the sequential enactment at different sites constrain the affordances available for rendering the practice meaningful to farmers’ repertoires. Consequently, addressing the low uptake of GAPs requires institutional work towards conventions that can construct a fit between sites along the agricultural research value chain
7. Edu-Communication Strategies of Cashew Production in a Rural Ghanaian Community
- Collection:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center (ACDC)
- Contributers:
- Anyarayor, B.K (author), Amadu, M.F. (author), and Alhassan, A. (author)
- Format:
- Journal article
- Publication Date:
- 2021-10-03
- Published:
- Ghana: Extension Education Society
- Location:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 203 Document Number: D12337
- Journal Title:
- Journal of Extension Education
- Journal Title Details:
- Vol. 32 No. 3
- Notes:
- 10 pages., This study examined the edu-communication strategies that agriculture extension service agencies use in the dissemination and promotion of innovation adoption among cashew farmers in the Kpandai district agricultural zones in Northern Ghana. A total of 140 cashew farmers were sampled using simple random sampling technique. Three District Agricultural Officers (DAO) and twenty-one satellite Agriculture Extension Officers (AEO) were also drawn into the sample. The results of the study show that, face to face interaction, field demonstration, entertainment- education through community radio broadcasting and Farmer Group Discussions (FGDs) were extensively and efficiently used by the AEOs to promote adoption of improved production technologies among cashew farmers. The study discovered that EduCom strategies contribute to higher rates of adoption and partly accounts for increased cashew yields in the study area. The indigenisation of agriculture extension services approaches using local language in the design and dissemination of adoption process is, highly recommended as a core tenet of technology dissemination if higher adoption rates are expected.
8. Intermediation Capabilities of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) in Ghana’s Agricultural Extension System
- Collection:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center (ACDC)
- Contributers:
- Munthali, Nyamwaya (author), Lie, Rico (author), Van Lammeren, Ron (author), Van Paassen, Annemarie (author), Leeuwis, Cees (author), and Asare, Richard (author)
- Format:
- Journal article
- Publication Date:
- 2021-06-12
- Published:
- South Africa: University of Witwatersrand
- Location:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 204 Document Number: D12435
- Journal Title:
- African Journal of Information and Communication
- Journal Title Details:
- Vol. 28 (2021)
- Notes:
- 37 pages., Information and communication technologies (ICTs), specifically those that are digital and interactive, present opportunities for enhanced intermediation between actors in Ghana’s agricultural extension system. To understand these opportunities, this study investigates the capabilities of ICTs in support of seven forms of intermediation in the context of agricultural extension: disseminating (information), retrieving (information), harvesting (information), matching (actors to services), networking (among actors), coordinating (actors), and co-creating (among actors). The study identifies the types of ICTs currently functioning in Ghana’s agricultural system, and applies a Delphi-inspired research design to determine the consensus and dissensus of researchers, scientists, and practitioners about the potential of these ICTs to support each of the seven intermediation capabilities. The findings reveal that experts reached consensus that interactive voice response (IVR) technologies currently have the highest potential to support disseminating, retrieving, harvesting, and matching. Meanwhile, social media messaging (SMM) technologies are currently seen as highly capable of supporting coordinating and, to a lesser extent, co-creating, but no consensus is reached on the potential of any of the technologies to support networking.
9. Adoption and intensity of use of mobile money among smallholder farmers in rural Ghana
- Collection:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center (ACDC)
- Contributers:
- Kofi Asravor, Richard (author), Boakye, Afia Nyarko (author), and Essuman, John (author)
- Format:
- Journal article
- Publication Date:
- 2021-04-21
- Published:
- International: SAGE Journals
- Location:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 203 Document Number: D12310
- Journal Title:
- Information Development
- Journal Title Details:
- Online First
- Notes:
- 10 pages., he impact of mobile money services in sub-Saharan Africa have been largely recognised. However, empirical studies are principally lacking on the factors influencing the decision to own a mobile phone (first hurdle), register with mobile money (second hurdle) and the intensity of use of mobile money services (third hurdle). This study examined the determinants of the mobile phone ownership, drivers of registration (participation) of mobile money services, and the intensity of use of mobile money services in rural Ghana by employing the triple hurdle approach. The first and second hurdle were analysed using the logit model while quasi-poisson regression was used to analyse the third hurdle. The analysis from the cross-sectional data showed that the decision to own a mobile phone was driven by household size, marital status, the farm size, access to electricity, income status and the type of occupation engaged, whereas the decision to register with mobile money was influenced by the age, educational status, marital status, household size, farm size and the type of occupation engaged in by the household head. The intensity of usage of mobile money services was influenced by the age of the household head, higher educational level, marital status of the household head, household and farm size as well as the distance of the household heads from the mobile money agent which directly influences the intensity of use of mobile money services by household heads. The study recommends that strategies that promote access to electricity and occupation in the formal sector or both farming and trading in the rural communities should be promoted. Furthermore, policy attention should focus on location, farmers and farm characteristics.
10. Farmers’ perception on soil erosion in Ghana: Implication for developing sustainable soil management strategy
- Collection:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center (ACDC)
- Contributers:
- Tesfahunegn, Gebreyesus Brhane (author), Ayuk, Elias T. (author), and Adiku, S. G. K. (author)
- Format:
- Journal article
- Publication Date:
- 2021-03-02
- Published:
- International: PLOS
- Location:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 204 Document Number: D12477
- Journal Title:
- PLoS One
- Journal Title Details:
- 16 (3)
- Notes:
- 26 pages, Farmers’ perception on soil erosion has not adequately reported in the conditions of Ghana though its causes and effects are time and site-specific. The objective of this study was to assess farmers’ perception on soil erosion and implication for developing soil management strategy in the Eastern and Northern Regions of Ghana. A total of 130 household head farmers were interviewed and complemented with field observation and group. Data was analyzed using descriptive, chi-square test, T-test and binary logistic regression. The results show that there was significant variation in socioeconomic, farm and institutional attributes among the farmers`in the study regions. In the Eastern and Northern Regions, significantly higher proportions of the farmers (95.7% and 86.7%, respectively) perceived soil erosion as serious problem. Significantly higher proportions of the respondents (80%) perceived severe erosion problem at homestead land in the Eastern Region whereas severe erosion in the Northern Region was more noticed at distance farmlands (85.0%). In the two regions, the major causes of severe erosion as perceived by most farmers were over-cultivation, deforestation and heavy rainfall events. In the Eastern and Northern Regions, 58.6% and 75.0% of the farmers perceived, respectively, that soil erosion severity has been increased since the past 10-years. Perceptions of most frequently noted indicators of soil erosion were declined productivity, shallow soil depth, presence of rills, sheet erosion, soil loss from farmland, and change in soil color. Results of the binary logistic regression indicate that there is heterogeneity in the factors accounting for the perception of soil fertility. In developing promising soil management strategy in the study area, attention must be given to key socioeconomic, biophysical, farm and institutional factors.