Production Risk And Technical Efficiency Of Dry-Season Vegetable Farmers In The Upper East Region Of Ghana

The productivity of yam in Ghana has been on a constant decline recently, mainly due to weather extremes and nematode infestations. This has significantly affected the profitability of yam production, with a resultant effect on the livelihoods of the thousands of yam income dependent households. Several techniques have been developed to improve the situation. This study purposes to estimate the profitability of yam production under the novel ‘wrap and plant’ technology of planting seed yam, in comparison to the traditional method in three agro-ecological zones in Ghana using 20 young and male-dominated randomly sampled yam farmers. The term ‘wrap and plant’ refers to a novel method of wrapping seed yam with abamectin treated banana paper (ABM) before planting in the soil. This is to prevent nematode migration into the seed yam during planting and also the new yam that develops. Each farmer was supported to farm on four demonstration plots of 144 mounds in all (six rows of six mounds, making 36 mounds per plot). The four demonstration plots/sites per farmer were randomly selected and the three treatments (ABP) banana paper with abamectin, (BP) banana paper without abamectin and the control, representing Farmer Practice (FP), were used with four replications per site for both dry and wet seasons. The profitability of their production under three yam planting techniques, abamectin-treated banana paper (ABP), untreated banana paper (BP), and farmer practice (FP) was determined using Benefit Cost Ratio (BCR) analysis. The study found that though the use of the new planting technology yielded significantly higher net-benefits compared to FP, they resulted in rather lower BCRs. Using FP led to 0.916 and 1.531 significantly higher BCR on the average, compared to ABP and BP, respectively. Although this study affirms FP as the most profitable planting technique, the new technology increased yam yields, but at higher costs. Farmers are willing to adopt this technology if the cost of the banana paper is further reduced. The findings of the study reinforce the importance of lowering the cost of adopting new planting techniques in order to make production under such techniques profitable for farmers.