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
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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.
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