Resume Jurnal 14775

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