Agricultural services and rural household welfare: empirical evidence from Ghana
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aimed to examine the impacts of agricultural services on welfare of rural farmers in Ghana.
Design/methodology/approach
Using data from 1431 rural maize farmers, we employ multinomial endogenous switching regression and multivalued inverse probability weighted regression adjustment to assess the impacts.
Findings
Results show that 19.8%, 9.7% and 3.42% of farmers adopted solely irrigation, extension and mechanization, respectively. Furthermore, utilizing a range of agricultural services significantly improves maize yields, gross income and per capita food consumption.
Research limitations/implications
This study recommends strategies that target the adoption of combinations of agricultural services to enhance rural farmers’ welfare in Ghana and other developing countries.
Originality/value
While agricultural services are claimed to improve agricultural production and peasants’ welfare, their impacts are not studied exhaustively. This paper contributes by providing empirical evidence of the impacts of agricultural services on farmers’ welfare.
Peer review
The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-11-2022-0745.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
Authors thank the farmers in Kintampo North and South districts, Brong Ahafo, Ghana for providing data and making this study successful. We deeply appreciate the reviewers for their constructive suggestions to improve this paper.
Citation
Asante, B.O., Prah, S., Addai, K.N., Anang, B. and Ng’ombe, J.N. (2024), "Agricultural services and rural household welfare: empirical evidence from Ghana", International Journal of Social Economics, Vol. ahead-of-print No. ahead-of-print. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJSE-11-2022-0745
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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