Examining the risk mitigation strategies of farm households in Ghana: The role of community water resources.

Agricultural water is indispensable for fostering resilient and sustainable agricultural practices. However, empirical evidence regarding the relationship between community water resources (CWR) and risk mitigation behaviours among farm households remains scant. Utilising nationally-representative household survey data and geospatial information on household locations, we investigate how access to CWR influences crop diversification and sharecropping.

Farmers' response to COVID-19 disruptions: The case of cropland allocation decision.

This study provides new evidence on the determining factors of cropland allocation decisions within the context of the COVID-19 pandemic by using the seemingly unrelated regression (SUR) model on 309 farm households. The results reveal that socio-economic, production, institutional, and political factors significantly influence the choice and size of cropland allocation decisions among legumes and cereals. Beyond these factors, we find that COVID-19 education increases land area allocated to staples while perception of disruptive effect of COVID-19 on agriculture positively correlates with the area under commercial crop (soybean) production.

Perceptions of COVID-19 shocks and adoption of sustainable agricultural practices in Ghana.

Most studies on the novel COVID-19 pandemic have focused mainly on human health, food systems, and employment with limited studies on how farmers implement sustainable agricultural practices (SAPs) in response to the pandemic. This study examines how perceptions of COVID-19 shocks influence the adoption of SAPs among smallholder farmers in Ghana. We find that perceptions of COVID-19 shocks influence the probability and intensity of SAPs adoption.

Parental Time Poverty, Child Work and School Attendance in Ghana.

Unlabelled: This study examines the relationship between parental time poverty, child work, and school attendance in Ghana using data from the sixth and seventh rounds of the Ghana Living Standard Survey (GLSS6 and GLSS7). Results of the analysis indicate an increasing decline in child enrolment in public schools (from 9% to 6%) among time poor household heads. In addition, parental time poverty increases children's walking hours to and from school and private school enrolment.

Fried sweetpotato user preferences identified in Nigeria and Ghana and implications for trait evaluation.

Fried sweetpotato quality is important for variety adoption in West Africa. To inform breeding efforts, the study developed a product profile for sweetpotato chunk fries using mixed qualitative and quantitative methods. Root characteristics, processing attributes, in-mouth attributes and appearance of fried product were critical to final product quality.

Climate-smart cowpea adoption and welfare effects of comprehensive agricultural training programs.

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.