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Diversification and Productivity in Crop-livestock. Farming Systems in the Forest Savannah Agro-ecological. Zone of Ghana. Bright Asante, Renato Villano, Ian ...
Diversification and Productivity in Crop-livestock Farming Systems in the Forest Savannah Agro-ecological Zone of Ghana Bright Asante, Renato Villano, Ian Patrick and George Battese

Contributed presentation at the 60th AARES Annual Conference, Canberra, ACT, 2-5 February 2016

Copyright 2016 by Author(s). All rights reserved. Readers may make verbatim copies of this document for non-commercial purposes by any means, provided that this copyright notice appears on all such copies.

Diversification and Productivity in Crop-livestock Farming Systems in the Forest Savannah Agroecological Zone of Ghana Bright Asante, Renato Villano, Ian Patrick and George Battese UNE Business School, University of New England, Armidale, NSW, Australia

Outline • • • • •

Background Research Question and Objectives Methods of Analyses Results Concluding Remarks

Background and Policy Questions

Ghana's Agric.

Diversification

• 22% GDP, 50% labour force • Largest foreign exchange earner

• Spreads risks • Sustainable production environment

What has been done? Diversification studies in Ghana have focused on: • Income diversification (e.g. Aneani et al., 2011) • Livelihood diversification (e.g. Lay and Schüler, 2008; Senadza, 2012) Missing link- studies on:  Farm diversification particularly, on integrated croplivestock systems?  Any evidence of economies of scope?  Which output combinations decreases risk exposure?

Objective To examine economies of scope and risks in integrated crop-livestock diversification among farmers in the forest savannah agro-ecological zone of Ghana

Data, Study Area & Sampling Technique Forest Savannah Transition Agro-ecological Zone

Atebubu-Amantin District (Brong Ahafo Region)

Ejura-Sekyedumase District (Ashanti Region)

12 Communities

12 Communities

304 Farm households

304 Farm households

608 Farm households

Methodology • Stochastic input distance functions – Evidence of economies of scope in diversification • Moment-based approach – Reduction in risk exposure among diversified options • Key variables – Inputs: land, labour, crop capital and livestock capital – Outputs: cereals (maize), legumes (groundnut, cowpea), other crops, Livestock (small ruminants, other livestock), yam

Summary statistics of variables Variable

Mean

Std. Dev.

2106

2658

Cowpea (GHȻ)

1386

2584

Groundnut (GHȻ)

356

1094

Small ruminants inputs (GHȻ)

1682

2731

Other livestock inputs (GHȻ)

2025

8977

Yam (GHȻ)

2684

6797

Other crops (GHȻ)

839

3963

Land (hectares)

1335 6.1

1572 5.1

Crops capital (GHȻ)

3173

3201

Livestock capital (GHȻ)

1160

2393

Outputs Maize (GHȻ) Legumes

Livestock

Inputs Labour (man-days per year)

Evidence of scope economies Output combination

Estimate

SD

t-value

Cereals with Legumes

-0.0051

0.0042

-1.21

Cereals with Other Crops

-0.0650

0.0067

-9.72

Cereals with Livestock

0.0105

0.0046

2.29

Legumes with Other Crops

0.0413

0.0058

7.15

Legumes with Livestock

0.0011

0.0041

0.27

Other Crops with Livestock

0.0680

0.0055

12.28

Specific outputs Specific output combinations which exhibited scope economies included: • Cowpea and Yam • Cowpea and Small Ruminant • Groundnut and Other livestock • Yam and Other crops

Effects on Risks Exposure Output(s)

Variance

Skewness

+

++

Cowpea and Small ruminants

+++

+++

Cowpea and Other livestock

---

--

Groundnut and Yam

---

---

Groundnut and Other livestock

++

++

Yam and SR

---

---

Yam and Other crops

++

++

Cowpea and Yam

Yam and Other livestock

-

Concluding Remarks • Crop-livestock diversification is a desirable strategy for improving overall farm productivity • Importance of output combinations: – Promotion of output combinations such as Cowpea and Yam, Cowpea and Small Ruminant, Groundnut and Other livestock and Yam and Other crops in integrated crop-livestock production system. – Output combinations such as Cowpea and Yam, Cowpea and Small Ruminants, Groundnut and Other livestock, Yam and Other crops have decreasing effects on risk and downside risk exposure.

Thanks for listening! Comments are welcome!