Resource use efficiency among maize farmers in Ghana
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Date
2016
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Agriculture & Food Security
Abstract
Background: Despite the enormous importance of maize in Ghana, maize farmers in the country continue to
experience low yields, making Ghana self-insufficient in the production of the crop. For maize farmers to be helped
to increase productivity, the focus should not only be on whether or not they have adopted productivity-enhancing
technologies, but it is necessary to carefully examine whether they are even making maximum use of the technologies
or inputs available to them. This study analysed resource use efficiency for Ghana’s maize farms.
Methods: The data used were obtained through a cross-sectional survey of 576 maize farmers in the Northern
Savannah, Transitional, Forest and Coastal Savannah zones of Ghana using structured questionnaire. Descriptive statistics,
stochastic frontier analysis and the ratio of marginal value product to marginal factor cost were the methods of
analysis employed.
Results: The results showed that generally, maize farmers in Ghana were inefficient in their use of resources available
to them. Fertilizer, herbicide, pesticide, seed, manure and land were underutilized, while labour and capital were
overutilized by the farmers. The results further showed that maize farmers in Ghana exhibit increasing returns to scale,
indicating that the famers can increase their output by increasing the use of some of the key resources.
Conclusion: Incentives and strategies aimed at encouraging farmers to optimize the use of fertilizer, herbicide, pesticide,
seed, manure and land are recommended to ensure improved maize productivity in Ghana. Currently, incentives
and strategies could take the form of better management by government of the current fertilizer subsidy programme
and efficient input distribution through farmer-based organizations to ensure easy access by farmers.
Description
This article is published by Agriculture & Food Security and also available at DOI 10.1186/s40066-016-0076-2
Keywords
Efficiency, Maize, Productivity, Resource use, Stochastic frontier