Journal
article title
|
Impact
of agricultural extension service on adoption of chemical fertilizer:
Implications for rice productivity and development in Ghana
|
Journal
|
NJAS – Wageningen Journal of Life Sciences 79 (2016)
|
Pages
|
41-49
|
Writers
|
Donkor Emmanuel, Enoch, Owusu-Sekyere,
Victor Owusu, Henry Jordaan
|
Reviewer
|
Brigita
E K Sidharta
|
1. Introduction
In Ghana, about 60% of the
population are rural dwellers who depend either directly or indirectly on
agriculture for their livelihood and survival. This indicates that agriculture
plays a critical role in promoting economic growth, food security, poverty
reduction, livelihoods and rural development. The deficit in food supply is
sufficed by imports. However, the reliance on food imports to meet the expected
food supply by the year 2020 may not be economically sustainable. This calls
for an urgent need to increase domestic food production by paying critical
attention to a green revolution in Africa. However, evidence shows that adoption
of chemical fertilizer is low in Africa, particularly among rice producers in
Ghana. One of the avenues for increasing the adoption of chemical fertilizer in
the country is through the efficient agricultural extension service. Agricultural
extension strengthens a farmer’s capacity to innovate by providing access to
knowledge and information. Farmers also advocate that the development of
agriculture depends largely on access to new technologies and information. However,
it is evident that farmers’ access to agricultural extension in the country is
low. A number of empirical studies have been conducted on the adoption of
chemical fertilizer in Africa. However, few studies exist on the impact of
agricultural extension service on the adoption of chemical fertilizer and the
resulting impact on rice productivity. This paper therefore contributes to the
existing empirical literature on the adoption of soil improvement technologies
by analyzing the impact of agricultural extension service on adoption of
chemical fertilizer, taking into account endogeneity and selection biases.
Selection bias occurs because adoption of chemical fertilizer and access to
extension services by farmers in Ghana are not randomly assigned.
2. Methodology
The researcher using conceptual
framework and empirical strategy to determining simultaneously the determinants
of adoption of chemical fertilizer and access to agricultural extension
service. The data employed in the study was obtained from the Ghana
Agricultural Production Survey which was conducted in 2011. A multistage
sampling technique was used to select the respondents. The first stage involves
the purposive selection of rice producing regions in Ghana. Rice producing
districts were stratified in the second stage. The next stage involved random
sampling of rice- farmer households. The total sample size was 470. This
comprised 120 rice farmers from Bawku district and 350 rice farmers from Kassena
Nankana district. The descriptive and empirical results were analyzed using
Stata 13.
3. Results and discussions
The descriptive results reveal
that access to agricultural extension services in Ghana is low, as about 62% of
sampled farmers did not receive agricultural extension services. This provides
support for examining the possible factors influencing a farmer’s access or
lack of access to agricultural extension services, particularly from the
farmer’s point of view. The results show that 65% of rice farmers who received
extension services are located in Kassena Nankana district, while the remaining
farmers are located in the Bawku Municipal area. The descriptive observed that
the adoption of chemical fertilizer in Ghana, particularly in the northern
part, is low. The study shows that only 30% of the farmers interviewed applied
chemical fertilizers on their rice fields. The farmers applied chemical
fertilizer types such as NPK 15:15:15, sulphate of ammonia and urea. There are
significant differences in the socioeconomic, institutional and technological
factors relating to the adopters and non-adopters of chemical fertilizer.
The empirical results show that
the Wald Chi-square is statistically significant at 1% level, suggesting that
the explanatory variables jointly determine the adoption of chemical fertilizer
among rice producers. The Chi-square statistic for endogeneity test is
statistically significant at 5%, indicating the endogeneity assumption
regarding access to extension service in the chemical adoption model is
validated. This implies that the extension variable should be treated as
endogenous in adoption specifications and this justifies the use of an
instrumental variable approach.
The results show that farmers
who have adequate access to extension service have a higher probability of
adopting chemical fertilizer. This suggests that extension delivery should be
given the necessary attention by policy makers, if the aim is to increase productivity
through application of chemical fertilizers in Africa. The results confirm the
usefulness of extension services in promoting agricultural technology in
developing countries. The determinants of access to agricultural extension
services results indicate that rice producers who adopt row planting have a
higher probability of contacting agricultural extension officers for production
information.
The results modelling the impact
of agricultural extension service on fertilizer application using the PSM indicate
that agricultural extension service tends to impact positively on the quantity
of chemical fertilizer applied by farmers. Farmers who have access to extension
services, on aver- age, applied 93.46 kg/ha quantity of fertilizer, which is
significantly higher than that of farmers who have no access, with an average
application rate of 67.80 kg/ha. The ATT shows that farmers who had access to
agricultural extension services applied 25.84 kg/ ha more than farmers who had
no access did.
4. Conclusions
The current food insecurity
situation and high demand for food commodities calls for an urgent need to
increase food production. One of the avenues to increase the adoption of
chemical fertilizer is through the provision of an efficient agricultural extension
service. Therefore, the present study has examined the impact of agricultural
extension service on the adoption of chemical fertilizer. Based on empirical
findings, we conclude that the agricultural extension variable is endogenous in
the adoption model. Hence, we recommend that future studies on adoption and
agricultural extension should adopt empirical models that account for
endogeneity in order to achieve efficient estimates. to ensure food security
and increase food production in sub-Saharan Africa, particular attention should
be given to agricultural extension services. We also conclude that the probability
of adopting chemical fertilizer and agricultural extension services is lower
among older farmers, relative to younger farmers. Gender and education play
significant roles in the adoption of chemical fertilizer and extension
services, with males and educated farmers having a higher likelihood of
adoption.
Moreover, farmers who cultivate
larger farms have a higher probability of adopting chemical fertilizer and
accessing agricultural extension services. Technological factors, such as row
planting and irrigation farming, facilitate the use of chemical fertilizer and
access to agricultural extension services, respectively. Institutional factors,
such as credit access and leasing, enhance farmers’ access to agricultural
extension services. Generally, we conclude that socioeconomic, institutional
and technological variables are crucial in the adoption of chemical fertilizer,
as well as participation in agricultural extension services. Researcher
suggest that, in order to enhance the adoption of chemical fertilizer, policy
makers should target equipping extension agents with adequate items of
infrastructure that enable their easy movement to the farmers. In addition,
more extension agents should be trained and deployed in the country to reduce
the workload of the limited number of extension agents available, with the goal
of increasing rice productivity.
Source: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1573521416300537
