Smallholder Access to Agricultural Productive Resources in the Dangme East and West Districts of Ghana

Abstract

Smallholder farmers in Ghana are confronted with the problem of low crop yields as a result of their lack of access to agricultural productive resources. Smallholder farmers within the Dangme East and Dangme West districts are no exception. The objective of this study was to examine the socio-economic and institutional factors that influence smallholder farmers‘ access to productive resources. Data was collected from 150 respondents who were selected from the Dangme East and Dangme West districts of Ghana, using simple random sampling technique and analysed with the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) software. Descriptive statistics such as frequencies, percentages, cross tabulations and chi-square tests, were used to analyze the data. Results of chi-square test at 95% confidence level indicates that socio-economic factors such as age influence access to land, credit, inputs and labour; with level of education influencing only labour while size of household had influence on access to extension services. There were no gender differentials in accessing productive resources in the study area. Size of land holding had influence on inputs, credit, land and labour, while farmer group membership was found to influence access to credit and inputs but did not influence access to extension services, land, labour, and technology. The studies recommends that, the government fertilizer subsidy programme should be continued while the government subsidy policy should include other productive resources like herbicides, insecticides and improved seeds. The Ministry of Food and Agriculture should continue to encourage farmer group formation for easy access to extension services and credit.