Abstract
Agricultural training programs remain one of the primary mechanisms for disseminating modern and climate-smart technologies with the aim to improve the welfare outcomes of smallholder farmers. With persistent low agricultural productivity in Sub Saharan Africa (SSA), the content, effectiveness, and mode of delivery of training programs remain a debate. In this paper, we examine the adoption, productivity, and income effects of participating in a novel comprehensive agricultural training program (CATP) involving cowpea farmers in northern Ghana by using the endogenous switching regression (ESR) model. The CATP requires farmers to complete a set of modules on good agronomic practices to gain informal certification. The results indicate that participating in the CATP increases the adoption of climate-smart cowpea varieties, productivity, and cowpea income by 75, 15, and 24% points, respectively, compared to their mean levels. These positive welfare effects of participating in the CATPs confirm the need to increase capacity-enhancing activities in agricultural development projects, and design mechanisms to eliminate barriers to participation among rural farm households.
Highlights
IntroductionMost households depend on the agricultural sector for livelihood support
In developing countries, most households depend on the agricultural sector for livelihood support
Where D is a binary decision variable that equals to one if cowpea farmer chooses to participate in a comprehensive agricultural training program (CATP) and equals zero otherwise; Z is a vector of household demographics, socio-economic, and farm-level character istics; α is a vector of parameters to be estimated; and εi is a random error term
Summary
Most households depend on the agricultural sector for livelihood support. Several past and current develop ment interventions prioritize increasing agricultural productivity as a viable pathway to improving farmers’ welfare. These interventions include increasing access to technologies such as fertilizer, improved seed varieties, and technical knowledge [3,4]. Whereas the training and visit agricultural extension approach is often criticized as a top-down approach, there is limited agreement on the effectiveness of other models, such as farmer field schools (FFS) [7]. This study aims at contributing to evidence-based research on the impact of a compre hensive agricultural training programs (CATPs) on the adoption of climate-smart cowpea varieties, yield, and income. In such circumstances, analyzing the impact of training on welfare may not be an accurate reflection given that full and partial participants may have different outcomes when compared to non-participants
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