IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v13y2021i2p628-d478310.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Agriculture for Sustainable Development: A SWOT-AHP Assessment of Ghana’s Planting for Food and Jobs Initiative

Author

Listed:
  • Ernest Baba Ali

    (Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics, University for Development Studies, P.O. Box TL, Tamale 1350, Ghana)

  • Ephraim Bonah Agyekum

    (Department of Nuclear and Renewable Energy, Ural Federal University Named after the First President of Russia B.N. Yeltsin, 62002, 19 Mira street, 620002 Ekaterinburg, Russia)

  • Parise Adadi

    (Department of Food Science, University of Otago, 9054 Dunedin, New Zealand)

Abstract

The exponential increase in the population of Ghana and the need to meet the population’s food security needs while creating job opportunities have necessitated the implementation of the Planting for Food and Jobs (PFJ) initiative by the Government of Ghana (GoG). Using the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) analytical tool, we SWOT of the PFJ initiative. We further complemented the study with the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) tool to rank the various criteria (factors) identified under the SWOT analysis. The study identified favorable environmental conditions as the highest strength, which recorded 59.3%, followed by agricultural lands availability (21.8%). Inadequate of financial services was identified as the highest weakness (55.8%), followed by over-reliance on climatic conditions (25.9%). High export potential relative to agricultural products in the country was identified as the highest opportunity, which recorded a weight of 50.3%. The One District One Factory (1D1F) initiative came up as the second highest opportunity. Negative ramification of climate change was identified as the main threat to Ghana’s agricultural sector (57.9%), followed by the importation of basic food products (25%).

Suggested Citation

  • Ernest Baba Ali & Ephraim Bonah Agyekum & Parise Adadi, 2021. "Agriculture for Sustainable Development: A SWOT-AHP Assessment of Ghana’s Planting for Food and Jobs Initiative," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(2), pages 1-24, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:13:y:2021:i:2:p:628-:d:478310
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/2/628/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/2/628/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Rockstr m, J. & Barron, J. & Fox, P., 2003. "Water productivity in rain-fed agriculture: challenges and opportunities for smallholder farmers in drought-prone tropical agroecosystems," IWMI Books, Reports H032640, International Water Management Institute.
    2. Doorga, Jay R.S. & Rughooputh, Soonil D.D.V. & Boojhawon, Ravindra, 2019. "Multi-criteria GIS-based modelling technique for identifying potential solar farm sites: A case study in Mauritius," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 133(C), pages 1201-1219.
    3. Essegbey, George Owusu & Asare, Roland & Beintema, Nienke M., 2014. "Agricultural R&D in Ghana: An assessment of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research:," ASTI summary notes 128918, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    4. Kurttila, Mikko & Pesonen, Mauno & Kangas, Jyrki & Kajanus, Miika, 2000. "Utilizing the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) in SWOT analysis -- a hybrid method and its application to a forest-certification case," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 1(1), pages 41-52, May.
    5. Saaty, Thomas L., 1990. "How to make a decision: The analytic hierarchy process," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 48(1), pages 9-26, September.
    6. Haque, H.M. Enamul & Dhakal, Shobhakar & Mostafa, S.M.G., 2020. "An assessment of opportunities and challenges for cross-border electricity trade for Bangladesh using SWOT-AHP approach," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 137(C).
    7. Starr, Morgan & Joshi, Omkar & Will, Rodney E. & Zou, Chris B., 2019. "Perceptions regarding active management of the Cross-timbers forest resources of Oklahoma, Texas, and Kansas: A SWOT-ANP analysis," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 81(C), pages 523-530.
    8. Mohammed Tanko & Salifu Ismaila & Saeed Abu Sadiq, 2019. "Planting for Food and Jobs (PFJ): A panacea for productivity and welfare of rice farmers in Northern Ghana," Cogent Economics & Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 7(1), pages 1693121-169, January.
    9. Namara, Regassa E., 2011. "Irrigation development in Ghana: past experiences, emerging opportunities, and future directions," IWMI Working Papers H043830, International Water Management Institute.
    10. Etwire, Prince Maxwell, 2020. "The impact of climate change on farming system selection in Ghana," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 179(C).
    11. Patricia K. Mogomotsi & Amogelang Sekelemani & Goemeone E. J. Mogomotsi, 2020. "Climate change adaptation strategies of small-scale farmers in Ngamiland East, Botswana," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 159(3), pages 441-460, April.
    12. Anslem Bawayelaazaa Nyuor & Emmanuel Donkor & Robert Aidoo & Samuel Saaka Buah & Jesse B. Naab & Stephen K. Nutsugah & Jules Bayala & Robert Zougmoré, 2016. "Economic Impacts of Climate Change on Cereal Production: Implications for Sustainable Agriculture in Northern Ghana," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 8(8), pages 1-17, August.
    13. Isaac G. K. Ansah & Munkaila Lambongang & Samuel A. Donkoh, 2020. "Ghana’s Planting for Food and Jobs Programme: A Look at the Role of Capability in Farmers’ Participation," Journal of Human Development and Capabilities, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 21(2), pages 161-182, April.
    14. Diao, Xinshen & Cossar, Frances & Houssou, Nazaire & Kolavalli, Shashidhara, 2014. "Mechanization in Ghana: Emerging demand, and the search for alternative supply models," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 168-181.
    15. Ellis, Emmanuella, 2017. "Factors Affecting Risk Management Strategies To Climate Change Effects In Ghana," International Journal of Food and Agricultural Economics (IJFAEC), Alanya Alaaddin Keykubat University, Department of Economics and Finance, vol. 5(1), January.
    16. Mason-D'Croz, Daniel & Sulser, Timothy B. & Wiebe, Keith & Rosegrant, Mark W. & Lowder, Sarah K. & Nin-Pratt, Alejandro & Willenbockel, Dirk & Robinson, Sherman & Zhu, Tingju & Cenacchi, Nicola & Duns, 2019. "Agricultural investments and hunger in Africa modeling potential contributions to SDG2 – Zero Hunger," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 116(C), pages 38-53.
    17. Satish, P., 2007. "Rural Infrastructure and Growth: An Overview," Indian Journal of Agricultural Economics, Indian Society of Agricultural Economics, vol. 62(1), pages 1-20.
    18. Etongo, Daniel & Kanninen, Markku & Epule, Terence Epule & Fobissie, Kalame, 2018. "Assessing the effectiveness of joint forest management in Southern Burkina Faso: A SWOT-AHP analysis," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 31-38.
    19. Baffoe, Gideon, 2019. "Exploring the utility of Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) in ranking livelihood activities for effective and sustainable rural development interventions in developing countries," Evaluation and Program Planning, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 197-204.
    20. Hingley, Martin & Boone, Julie & Haley, Simon, 2010. "Local Food Marketing as a Development Opportunity for Small UK Agri-Food Businesses," International Journal on Food System Dynamics, International Center for Management, Communication, and Research, vol. 1(3), pages 1-10, October.
    21. De Marinis, Pietro & Sali, Guido, 2020. "Participatory analytic hierarchy process for resource allocation in agricultural development projects," Evaluation and Program Planning, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).
    22. Amfo, Bismark & Ali, Ernest Baba, 2020. "Climate change coping and adaptation strategies: How do cocoa farmers in Ghana diversify farm income?," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 119(C).
    23. Diao, Xinshen & Agandin, John & Fang, Peixun & Justice, Scott E. & Kufoalor, Doreen S. & Takeshima, Hiroyuki, 2018. "Agricultural mechanization in Ghana: Insights from a recent field study:," IFPRI discussion papers 1729, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    24. Neissi, Lamya & Albaji, Mohammad & Boroomand Nasab, Saeed, 2020. "Combination of GIS and AHP for site selection of pressurized irrigation systems in the Izeh plain, Iran," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 231(C).
    25. Paul, Manashi & Negahban-Azar, Masoud & Shirmohammadi, Adel & Montas, Hubert, 2020. "Assessment of agricultural land suitability for irrigation with reclaimed water using geospatial multi-criteria decision analysis," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 231(C).
    26. Hingley, Martin & Boone, Julie & Haley, Simon, 2010. "Local Food Marketing: Factors for Growth of Small Agri‐food Businesses in the UK," 2010 International European Forum, February 8-12, 2010, Innsbruck-Igls, Austria 100458, International European Forum on System Dynamics and Innovation in Food Networks.
    27. Dyson, Robert G., 2004. "Strategic development and SWOT analysis at the University of Warwick," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 152(3), pages 631-640, February.
    28. Wongnaa, Camillus Abawiera & Babu, Suresh, 2020. "Building resilience to shocks of climate change in Ghana's cocoa production and its effect on productivity and incomes," Technology in Society, Elsevier, vol. 62(C).
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Jiangning Cao & Yasir Ahmed Solangi, 2023. "Analyzing and Prioritizing the Barriers and Solutions of Sustainable Agriculture for Promoting Sustainable Development Goals in China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(10), pages 1-22, May.
    2. Agyekum, Ephraim Bonah & Amjad, Fahd & Mohsin, Muhammad & Ansah, Michael Nii Sanka, 2021. "A bird's eye view of Ghana's renewable energy sector environment: A Multi-Criteria Decision-Making approach," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 70(C).
    3. Yeboah, Samuel, 2023. "Unlocking the Potential of Technological Innovations for Sustainable Agriculture in Developing Countries: Enhancing Resource Efficiency and Environmental Sustainability," MPRA Paper 118216, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 04 Aug 2023.
    4. Retno Agustarini & Yetti Heryati & Yelin Adalina & Wahyu Catur Adinugroho & Dhany Yuniati & Rizki Ary Fambayun & Gerhard Eli Sabastian & Asep Hidayat & Hesti Lestari Tata & William Ingram & Aulia Perd, 2022. "The Development of Indigofera spp. as a Source of Natural Dyes to Increase Community Incomes on Timor Island, Indonesia," Economies, MDPI, vol. 10(2), pages 1-30, February.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Çağlar Kıvanç Kaymaz & Salih Birinci & Yusuf Kızılkan, 2022. "Sustainable development goals assessment of Erzurum province with SWOT-AHP analysis," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 24(3), pages 2986-3012, March.
    2. Silvia Novelli & Monica Vercelli & Chiara Ferracini, 2021. "An Easy Mixed-Method Analysis Tool to Support Rural Development Strategy Decision-Making for Beekeeping," Land, MDPI, vol. 10(7), pages 1-17, June.
    3. Nermin Kişi, 2019. "A Strategic Approach to Sustainable Tourism Development Using the A’WOT Hybrid Method: A Case Study of Zonguldak, Turkey," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(4), pages 1-19, February.
    4. Visser, Jurriaan & Trienekens, Jacques & van Beek, Paul, 2013. "Opportunities for Local for Local Food Production: A case in the Dutch Fruit and Vegetables," 2013 International European Forum, February 18-22, 2013, Innsbruck-Igls, Austria 164758, International European Forum on System Dynamics and Innovation in Food Networks.
    5. Hossein Yousefi & Saheb Ghanbari Motlagh & Mohammad Montazeri, 2022. "Multi-Criteria Decision-Making System for Wind Farm Site-Selection Using Geographic Information System (GIS): Case Study of Semnan Province, Iran," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(13), pages 1-27, June.
    6. Madjid Tavana & Mariya Sodenkamp & Leena Suhl, 2010. "A soft multi-criteria decision analysis model with application to the European Union enlargement," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 181(1), pages 393-421, December.
    7. Sward, Jeffrey A. & Nilson, Roberta S. & Katkar, Venktesh V. & Stedman, Richard C. & Kay, David L. & Ifft, Jennifer E. & Zhang, K. Max, 2021. "Integrating social considerations in multicriteria decision analysis for utility-scale solar photovoltaic siting," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 288(C).
    8. Asma Fahim & Qingmei Tan & Bushra Naz & Qurat ul Ain & Sibghat Ullah Bazai, 2021. "Sustainable Higher Education Reform Quality Assessment Using SWOT Analysis with Integration of AHP and Entropy Models: A Case Study of Morocco," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(8), pages 1-19, April.
    9. Sepehr Ghazinoory & Mansoureh Abdi & Mandana Azadegan-Mehr, 2010. "Swot Methodology: A State-of-the-Art Review for the Past, A Framework for the Future," Journal of Business Economics and Management, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 12(1), pages 24-48, November.
    10. Baffoe, Gideon, 2019. "Exploring the utility of Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) in ranking livelihood activities for effective and sustainable rural development interventions in developing countries," Evaluation and Program Planning, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 197-204.
    11. Falcone, Pasquale Marcello & Tani, Almona & Tartiu, Valentina Elena & Imbriani, Cesare, 2020. "Towards a sustainable forest-based bioeconomy in Italy: Findings from a SWOT analysis," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 110(C).
    12. Tahseen, Samiha & Karney, Bryan, 2017. "Opportunities for increased hydropower diversion at Niagara: An sSWOT analysis," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 101(C), pages 757-770.
    13. Phadermrod, Boonyarat & Crowder, Richard M. & Wills, Gary B., 2019. "Importance-Performance Analysis based SWOT analysis," International Journal of Information Management, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 194-203.
    14. Živan Živković & Djordje Nikolić & Marija Savić & Predrag Djordjević & Ivan Mihajlović, 2017. "Prioritizing Strategic Goals in Higher Education Organizations by Using a SWOT–PROMETHEE/GAIA–GDSS Model," Group Decision and Negotiation, Springer, vol. 26(4), pages 829-846, July.
    15. Dwivedi, Puneet & Alavalapati, Janaki R.R., 2009. "Stakeholders' perceptions on forest biomass-based bioenergy development in the southern US," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 37(5), pages 1999-2007, May.
    16. Parra-López, Carlos & Reina-Usuga, Liliana & Carmona-Torres, Carmen & Sayadi, Samir & Klerkx, Laurens, 2021. "Digital transformation of the agrifood system: Quantifying the conditioning factors to inform policy planning in the olive sector," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 108(C).
    17. Visser, Jurriaan & Trienekens, Jacques & van Beek, Paul, 2013. "Opportunities for Local for Local Food Production A Case in the Dutch Fruit and Vegetables," International Journal on Food System Dynamics, International Center for Management, Communication, and Research, vol. 4(1), pages 1-15, July.
    18. Takeshima, Hiroyuki & Liu, Yanyan, 2020. "Smallholder mechanization induced by yield-enhancing biological technologies: Evidence from Nepal and Ghana," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 184(C).
    19. Jahanifar, Komeil & Amirnejad, Hamid & Azadi, Hossein & Adenle, Ademola A. & Scheffran, Jürgen, 2019. "Economic analysis of land use changes in forests and rangelands: Developing conservation strategies," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 88(C).
    20. Jernej Prišenk & Jernej Turk, 2022. "Assessment of Concept between Rural Development Challenges and Local Food Systems: A Combination between Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis and Econometric Modelling Approach," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(6), pages 1-10, March.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:13:y:2021:i:2:p:628-:d:478310. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.