Mahama Abass, Awuni Joseph A, Mabe Franklin N, Azumah Shaibu Baanni
Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics, University for Development Studies, P. O. Box TL 1350, Tamale, Ghana.
Solidaridad Network - West Africa, East Legon, Accra PMB KD 11, Kanda, Accra, Ghana.
Heliyon. 2020 Mar 5;6(3):e03543. doi: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2020.e03543. eCollection 2020 Mar.
Soybean is an important cash crop especially for farmers in the north of Ghana. However, cultivation of the commodity is dominated by smallholders equipped with traditional tools, coupled with low or no adoption of improved soybean production technologies. Using primary data collected from 300 soybean farmers across northern Ghana, the study employed count data modelling to estimate the determinants of adoption intensity of sustainable soybean production technologies. The study accounted for potential estimation errors due to under-dispersion and over-dispersion, by using a model based on the generalized Poisson distribution. On the average, a farmer adopted 50% of the identified sustainable soybean production technologies. Age, education, extension visits, mass media through radio, and the perception of adoption of soybean production technologies being risky are significant with positive influence on the adoption intensity of sustainable soybean production technologies. The study therefore recommends among others, that various extension programmes should intensify education on the benefits of adopting sustainable soybean production practices. There is the need to set up many technology demonstration farms to give farmers hands-on training during field days.
大豆是一种重要的经济作物，对加纳北部的农民尤为重要。然而，这种作物的种植主要由配备传统工具的小农户主导，并且很少或几乎没有采用改良的大豆生产技术。该研究利用从加纳北部300名大豆种植农户收集的原始数据，采用计数数据模型来估计可持续大豆生产技术采用强度的决定因素。该研究通过使用基于广义泊松分布的模型，考虑了由于欠分散和过分散导致的潜在估计误差。平均而言，一位农民采用了50%已确定的可持续大豆生产技术。年龄、教育程度、推广访问、通过广播的大众媒体以及认为采用大豆生产技术有风险等因素，对可持续大豆生产技术的采用强度有显著的积极影响。因此，该研究特别建议，各种推广计划应加强关于采用可持续大豆生产实践益处的教育。有必要建立许多技术示范农场，以便在实地活动日为农民提供实践培训。
