International Institute of Tropical Agriculture, Ghana Office, Tamale, Ghana.
International Institute of Tropical Agriculture, Tamale, Ghana.
PLoS One. 2022 Jan 14;17(1):e0260877. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0260877. eCollection 2022.
This study was conducted to assess the potential impact of applying a new groundnut planting density on welfare of smallholder farmers in northern Ghana. We used data from on-farm experiments, focus group discussions, and a household survey. We followed three steps in our analysis. First, we conducted cost-benefit analysis in which we showed the economic advantage of the new technology over the farmers' practice. Second, we predicted adoption rates along timeline using the Adoption and Diffusion Outcome Prediction Tool (ADOPT). Third, using the results of the first and the second steps, we estimated the potential impact of the technology on poverty at household level using a combination of methods such as economic surplus model and econometric model. The cost-benefit analysis shows that increasing plant density increases farmers' financial returns i.e., the benefit-cost-ratio increases from 1.05 under farmers' practice to 1.87 under the best plant density option, which is 22 plants/sqm. The adoption prediction analysis shows that the maximum adoption rate for the best practice will be 62% which will take about nine years to reach. At the maximum adoption rate the incidence of extreme poverty will be reduced by about 3.6% if farmers have access to the international groundnut market and by about 2% if they do not have. The intervention will also reduce poverty gap and poverty severity. The results suggest that policy actions which can improve farmers' access to the international market will enhance farmers' welfare more than the situation in which farmers have access to domestic markets only. Furthermore, promoting a more integrated groundnut value-chain can broaden the demand base of the produce resulting in higher and sustainable impact of the technology on the welfare of groundnut producers and beyond.
本研究旨在评估在加纳北部应用新的花生种植密度对小农福利的潜在影响。我们使用了来自田间试验、焦点小组讨论和家庭调查的数据。我们在分析中遵循了三个步骤。首先，我们进行了成本效益分析，展示了新技术相对于农民现有做法的经济优势。其次，我们使用 Adoption and Diffusion Outcome Prediction Tool (ADOPT) 预测了随时间推移的采用率。第三，利用前两个步骤的结果，我们使用经济盈余模型和计量经济学模型等方法的组合，估计了该技术对家庭层面贫困的潜在影响。成本效益分析表明，增加种植密度会增加农民的财务回报，即效益成本比从农民现有做法下的 1.05 增加到最佳种植密度选项下的 1.87，最佳种植密度选项下的种植密度为 22 株/平方米。采用预测分析表明，最佳实践的最大采用率将达到 62%，这需要大约九年的时间才能达到。在最大采用率下，如果农民能够进入国际花生市场，极端贫困的发生率将减少约 3.6%；如果他们不能进入国际市场，极端贫困的发生率将减少约 2%。该干预措施还将减少贫困差距和贫困严重程度。研究结果表明，能够提高农民进入国际市场机会的政策行动将比农民只能进入国内市场的情况更能提高农民的福利。此外，促进更一体化的花生价值链可以扩大产品的需求基础，从而使该技术对花生生产者及其以外的人的福利产生更高和更可持续的影响。
