Resource use efficiency among maize farmers in Ghana

Dadson Awunyo-Vitor,Robert Aidoo,Camillus Abawiera Wongnaa

doi:10.1186/s40066-016-0076-2

Dadson Awunyo-Vitor, Robert Aidoo + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1186/s40066-016-0076-2

Copy DOI

Abstract

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. 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. 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. 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.

Highlights

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
It is important to determine the efficiency of resource use in maize production in Ghana so that government and individuals interested in investing in maize production in Ghana will know the levels at which production inputs should be employed in order for them to Awunyo‐Vitor et al Agric & Food Secur (2016) 5:28 achieve desired yields [30]. This is because apart from studies conducted by [3, 28] on resource use efficiency in maize production in Ghana, no other economic study has considered the subject in the country even though it has been done for other crops [5, 16, 21, 30, 31], making literature on resource use efficiency in maize production in Ghana very limited
The results showed that 77.4% of maize farmers in the sample are males, while 22.6% are females

Summary

Introduction

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. Awunyo‐Vitor et al Agric & Food Secur (2016) 5:28 achieve desired yields [30] This is because apart from studies conducted by [3, 28] on resource use efficiency in maize production in Ghana, no other economic study has considered the subject in the country even though it has been done for other crops [5, 16, 21, 30, 31], making literature on resource use efficiency in maize production in Ghana very limited. The results of the work of [28] revealed that maize farmers in the Nkoranza area of Ghana overutilized labour and underutilized fertilizer and seeds

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion