Disseminating sustainable intensification practices

Abstract

Adoption of sustainable intensification (SI) of agricultural practices is essential for increasing food production in more sustainable way. Dis-adoption of agricultural technologies is pervasive among smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa after withdrawal of most programme interventions. Based on data elicited from households in northern Ghana, this study i) examines alternative ways of inducing farmers into adopting SI practices, ii) determines the marginal farm household entrants that must be targeted during scaling up and -out SI practices, and iii) identify the farm households that benefited most from SI adoption during diffusion. Econometric approaches that account for sample selection issues were used in addressing the objectives of the study. <br /> The empirical results show that inducing farmers to adopt SI practices resulted in an increase in maize yield and net income of farmers. Results also suggest that the continuous inducement of farmers led to positive and significant increase in maize yield and net income of induced farmers. Point estimates reveal that stopping the inducement could have led to a decrease in maize yield and net income of induced farmers. The findings also indicate that farmers’ resource endowment and unobserved factors influence the marginal benefits of adopting SI practices, and that scaling up SI practices will favour marginal farm household entrants associated with the least probability of adoption based on observed socioeconomics characteristics. Finally, the results show that the adopters that benefited most from SI adoption during its diffusion are much more likely to live in highly resource endowed farm households with relatively younger household heads and fewer household members, and are more likely to travel longer distances before reaching the nearest weekly market and motorable road. <br /> Overall, the study provides empirical evidence that the adoption of SI practices enhances farm performance and household welfare, and that scaling up should be targeted. The study also suggests that the provision of support services is a necessary condition for sustaining adoption and thus collaboration between programme interventions with key government ministries and private business mechanisation firms are needed in the scaling up policy decision-making.