Climate change and farmers’ adaptive capacity to strategic innovations: the case of northern Ghana

Abstract

Northern Ghana is noted for perennial low and varying agricultural production and this is manifest by persistent vulnerability of inhabitants (mostly farmers) to food insecurity. The low agricultural production has been linked to effects of climate change. New technologies and cultivation practices aimed at enabling farmers to maximise their production to reduce risks associated with changes in climatic conditions in agriculture have been introduced in Northern Ghana. The nagging question is ‘“what influences the adaptive capacities of farmers to innovations introduced to them with the advent of climate variability’? This study has therefore been motivated by the interest in finding the determinants of adaptive capacity of farmers to various innovations targeted at adaptation to climate change and variability. The influence of education on the adaptive capacity of farmers to dugout construction and improvement suggest education will only make a difference for those with low adaptive capacity. This result, which also holds for the innovation on organic matter and composting, suggests that there is a threshold below which education or access to financial services exerts a positive influence on a farmer’s adaptive capacity. Technology appears to widen the gap between the different adaptive capacity categories of farm households.