Adoption of climate-smart agricultural practices among farm households in Ghana: The role of farmer participation in training programmes

Abstract

The threat of climate change on agri-production systems in Sub-Sahara Africa (SSA) has been well documented. Climate Smart Agriculture (CSA) is being promoted among farmers as a way of adapting to the effect of climate change on agricultural systems. This study used primary data from 300 farmers in the Zabzugu and South Tongu districts of Ghana. We fitted an Endogenous-Switching Poisson regression model to determine the drivers of farmers' participation in climate change capacity building programmes and the concomitant effect of participation on adoption intensity of Climate Smart Agricultural Practices (CSAPs). The study found that participation in climate change capacity building training is endogenous and is positively influenced by farmers' access to agricultural extension services and membership of farmer-based organisations (FBOs). Consequently, participation in capacity building training, family labour, and agricultural insurance significantly influenced farmers' CSAPs adoption intensity. We recommend, based on these findings, that climate change and agricultural projects incorporate farmer training on CSAPs in their programming, in order to guide the adoption of multiple practices. Here, extension agents and FBOs should be targeted to disseminate information to farmers. An important finding from this study relates to the significant effect of agricultural insurance on adoption intensity of CSAPs. We argue that farm insurance reduces the risk of investing in climate mitigation practices for smallholder farmers and for that matter, national agricultural policies should facilitate farmers’ subscription to crop insurance as a mechanism to increase resilience to climate risks and shocks.