Support farmers to adopt new tech - Study

A study on the ‘Impact of Technology Adoption: Evidence from Maize and Cowpea Farmers in Northern Ghana,’ has recommended more stakeholder involvement in the agriculture sector to provide credit and input support to farmers.

This would go a long way to help farmers to continue to implement the technologies on the farms, a Principal Technologist at the Science and Technology Policy Research Institute of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR-STEPRI), Mr Emmanuel Jumpah, said when he presented the findings at a validation workshop in Accra on August 11, 2020.

He noted the adoption of technology was critical to achieve sustained food productivity, ensure improved food security and raise farmers income.

He said agricultural extension remains critical to improving farm productivity.

“Expanding easy access to extension services and monitoring of farmers production activities by agric extension agents are highly recommended,” he said.

Africa RISING

The study flows from the Africa Research in Sustainable Intensification for the Next Generation (Africa RISING), a project aimed at generating and disseminating technologies for the adoption of smallholder farmers for improved livelihoods.

It is being implemented with several collaborators (farmers, researchers, policy institutions among others) in West Africa (Ghana and Mali), East Africa (Ethiopia and Tanzania) and Southern Africa (Malawi and Zambia).

In the Ghana, the project targets smallholder farmers in the northern part of the country engaged in crop (maize and cowpea) and livestock (small ruminants) production.

Technologies generated in these areas are disseminated to farmers through the concept of ‘technology parks.’

Mr Jumpah said the Africa RISING intervention had achieved some positive outcomes and working to consolidate and sustain the gains was imperative.

CSIR-STEPRI research component

The CSIR-STEPRI has been collaborating with the Africa RISING project since 2017 in the area of analysing policies that impact smallholder farmers.

In an overview, a Research Scientist, Dr Adams Abdulai, said the CSIR-STEPRI current research work involved monitoring group dynamics among users of small-scale maize shelling machines in northern Ghana.

He said it would also conduct simulation and other socio-economic analyses of selected sustainable intensification  technologies/practices for different farmer contexts to have a better understanding of the adoption potential of these proven technologies and opportunities for scaling up.

“The next steps are to undertake gender analysis in relation to technology adoption to inform policy, create awareness of the community, district and regional levels on the research findings for scale up by actors and other stakeholders,” he said.

Dr Abdulai said visibility of the Africa RISING intervention would be increased through policy engagements and use of available platforms to disseminate widely research findings based on the SI framework.

Analysis of SI tech
A Principal Technologist at the CSIR-STEPRI, Nana Yamoah Asafu-Adjaye, said a simulation analysis of SI technology adoption was conducted with an objective to assess the economic impact (poverty rate, farm income effects, per capita income and adoption rates).

He said the results on the ‘maize-cowpea living mulch technology’ showed that adoption rates differed with the introduction of cowpea in maize cultivation.  

“Cowpea living mulch planted one week after maize is GH¢6227.81, same planted two weeks after maize is GH¢6180.85 and cowpea planted same day with maize is GH¢5646.57.  

“The effect of different growth levels of cowpea living mulch and level of maize maturity have demonstrated that planting maize with cowpea as living mulch at one week after planting maize would be of most benefit to farmers,” he said.