Department of Agricultural Extension
Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://197.255.125.131:4000/handle/123456789/4842
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Item The Influence Of Capacity Building Projects On Farmer Innovative Performance And Poverty Reduction: The Case Of USAID Feed The Future Projects In Northern Ghana(University Of Ghana, 2021-12) Odonkor, E.N.Capacity building constitutes an integral part of development assistance that seeks to build the understanding, skills, and knowledge base of individuals and institutions in developing countries in a bid to improve the productivity of agriculture. Out of about 41.2% of the economically active people who are engaged in agriculture in Ghana, 72% are in northern Ghana. The study set out to investigate how farmer participation in the USAID Feed the Future Initiative capacity- building activities influenced their innovative performance and how that affected their yields in northern Ghana. The study also examined the relationship between the yields of the selected crops and the incomes, food security, and well-being of the farmers in that part of the country. The study was conducted in eight districts in all the five northern regions in Ghana. The study adopted a mixed-method approach and therefore used both qualitative and quantitative data. Using a survey and focus group discussions, data was collected from 314 farmers who participated in the selected capacity-building projects of the USAID FTF initiative in Ghana. The data was analysed with descriptive statistics, Wilcoxon sign ranked test, Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) regression, Chi-square test and Kruskal-Wallis test. The study revealed that farmer participation in the USAID FTF capacity-building projects influenced their innovative performance in terms of the utilization and sharing of the knowledge and skills acquired from the project activities. The majority of the farmers acquired high knowledge, and a majority are also practicing what they have learnt. The Principal Component Analysis (PCA) revealed that utilization of knowledge and information sharing impacted innovative performance as compared to knowledge acquisition alone. However not many of the farmers are sharing information about the things they have learned. This affected their innovative performance. As a result, farmer innovative performance did not influence the yield of the selected crops as was expected. However, the yields of the crops improved after farmers participated in the project activities. It was also revealed that there is a significant relationship between farmers’ crop productivity and their incomes which was expected to impact their food security and well-being. Although there was a significant relationship between maize productivity and food security, there was no significant relationship between rice and soybean productivity and food security. There was statistically significant relationship between rice and soybean productivity and farmers’ well-being but no statistically significant relationship between maize productivity and well-being. Generally, there is perceived improvement in income, food security and well-being of the farmers after participating in the project activities. This implies that the capacity building projects have impacted poverty positively and have enhanced poverty mitigation in northern Ghana. The study recommends that government policies and programmes meant to improve farmer innovativeness should target building the capacity of farmers through field demonstrations. Government policies should also support innovative farmers to lead farmer to farmer extension. It is also recommended that effort must be put into the continuous improvement of maize productivity to boost farmers’ incomes and enhance their well-being in northern Ghana.Item Enterprise Factors and Enterprise Growth of the Cassava Industry in Akuapem-North Municipality of the Eastern Region, Ghana(University of Ghana, 2020-07) Mbawini, A.Several factors influence the establishment, effective management and success of enterprises. These factors can be categorised under pre- and post- establishment factors and although they affect the successful establishment and growth of enterprises, much attention have not been paid to them. The failure of some businesses could be linked with non-adherence to and inclusion of the factors in the establishment process as well as management practices. Pre-establishment factors include enterprise characteristics, knowledge of fund availability, knowledge of business information, and entrepreneur’s expertise whiles Post-establishment factors entail business survival objectives, sociocultural environment, business environment, and human resource development. This study sought to determine how enterprise factors contribute to the growth of enterprise and how this growth contributes to the attainment of improved livelihood outcomes in the cassava industry. A mixed method study design was used in this study. A total of 200 entrepreneurs from the cassava industry were interviewed. The study revealed that consumer need showed significant association (𝜌= 0.01, 0.01 and 0.01) with employment, sales and technology growth factors respectively. The type of agro enterprise (ρ= 0.01) and access to business information (ρ= 0.03) were significantly related to technology growth. Knowledge of fund availability (ρ= 0.01) was also significantly related to employment growth. Post establishment business environment (ρ= 0.01) was significantly related to sales growth. The findings of the study revealed a significant relationship between sales growth (ρ= 0.04) variables and improved health but was not significant with employment growth (ρ= 0.25) and technology growth (ρ= 0.05). The results also showed significant relationship between sales (ρ= 0.03), technology (ρ= 0.02) and employment (ρ= 0.02) growth factors. From the findings of this study, it is recommended that there should be technology training, and education on available funding sources.