Adoption of improved agricultural technologies among rice farmers in Ghana: a multivariate probit approach

Abstract

The need for practising modern techniques in rice production has become increasingly important in Ghana as the per capita cultivable land continues to shrink. This study employed a multivariate probit model to estimate the determinants of adoption of improved agricultural technologies using household data collected from 543 rice farmers in the Upper East and Northern region of Ghana. There was complementarity among all the improved rice production technologies (i.e. nursery establishment, harrowing, line planting, spacing, urea briquette, irrigation, and bunding). Among the socio-economic variables, education, household size, experience, farm size, sex, and age of the farmer play significant roles, with differing signs across technologies. Among the institutional factors, membership of farmer-based organisation, access to research service, training and credit were significant with differing signs across the improved technologies. Location also had significant and differing influence on adoption. Also, demonstration, TV, radio, video, mobile phones, and household extension methods had significant and differing influence on the adoption of improved technologies, providing significant justification for the review of the agricultural extension methods and approaches of Ghana to include new ICT and mass media approaches. To improve the output of rice, farmers are advised to jointly adopt the identified improved rice production technologies.Keywords: Adoption, Agricultural Technologies, Multivariate Probit, Rice Farmers, Northern Ghana