Cargando…

Responding to harvest failure: Understanding farmers coping strategies in the semi-arid Northern Ghana

Farmers coping strategies against harvest failures have implication for future adaptation to such shocks. Previous studies on farmers’ vulnerability and response to shocks have emphasized on adaptation, at the expense of their coping to such shocks. Using a survey data from 299 farm households in no...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Boansi, David, Owusu, Victor, Tham-Agyekum, Enoch Kwame, Wongnaa, Camillus Abawiera, Frimpong, Joyceline Adom, Bukari, Kaderi Noagah
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10104303/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37058444
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0284328
_version_ 1785026012081291264
author Boansi, David
Owusu, Victor
Tham-Agyekum, Enoch Kwame
Wongnaa, Camillus Abawiera
Frimpong, Joyceline Adom
Bukari, Kaderi Noagah
author_facet Boansi, David
Owusu, Victor
Tham-Agyekum, Enoch Kwame
Wongnaa, Camillus Abawiera
Frimpong, Joyceline Adom
Bukari, Kaderi Noagah
author_sort Boansi, David
collection PubMed
description Farmers coping strategies against harvest failures have implication for future adaptation to such shocks. Previous studies on farmers’ vulnerability and response to shocks have emphasized on adaptation, at the expense of their coping to such shocks. Using a survey data from 299 farm households in northern Ghana, this study has analyzed farmers’ coping strategies against harvest failure, and the drivers of the choice and intensity of the coping strategies. The empirical results show that most of the households used liquidation of productive assets, reduction in consumption, borrowing from family and friends, diversification of livelihoods, and migration to cities for off-farm jobs as coping measures in response to harvest failure. The empirical results from a multivariate probit model indicate that the choice of coping strategies is influenced by farmers’ access to radio, net value of livestock produced per man-equivalent (ME), experience of yield loss in the previous year, farmers’ perception about the fertility status of their crop fields, access to credit, distance to market, farm-to-farmer extension, location of the respondent, cropland per ME, and access to off-farm income. Empirical results from a zero-truncated negative binomial regression model also indicate that the number of coping strategies adopted increases with the value of farm implements, access to radio, farmer-to-farmer extension and being located in the regional capital. It however decreases with the age of the household head, number of family members abroad, a positive perception about the fertility status of crop fields, access to government extension services, distance to market, and access to off-farm income. Limited access to credit, radio, and markets renders farmers more vulnerable and pushes them to adopt more costly coping strategies. In addition, an increase in income earned from secondary livestock products decreases incentive for farmers to adopt liquidation of productive assets as coping strategy after a harvest failure. Policy makers and stakeholders could make smallholder farmers less vulnerable to harvest failure by enhancing their access to radio, credit, off-farm income and market, promotion of farmer-to-farmer extension, implementing measure to improve the fertility of crop fields in the study area, and enhancing farmers’ engagement in the production and selling of secondary livestock products
format Online
Article
Text
id pubmed-10104303
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2023
publisher Public Library of Science
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-101043032023-04-15 Responding to harvest failure: Understanding farmers coping strategies in the semi-arid Northern Ghana Boansi, David Owusu, Victor Tham-Agyekum, Enoch Kwame Wongnaa, Camillus Abawiera Frimpong, Joyceline Adom Bukari, Kaderi Noagah PLoS One Research Article Farmers coping strategies against harvest failures have implication for future adaptation to such shocks. Previous studies on farmers’ vulnerability and response to shocks have emphasized on adaptation, at the expense of their coping to such shocks. Using a survey data from 299 farm households in northern Ghana, this study has analyzed farmers’ coping strategies against harvest failure, and the drivers of the choice and intensity of the coping strategies. The empirical results show that most of the households used liquidation of productive assets, reduction in consumption, borrowing from family and friends, diversification of livelihoods, and migration to cities for off-farm jobs as coping measures in response to harvest failure. The empirical results from a multivariate probit model indicate that the choice of coping strategies is influenced by farmers’ access to radio, net value of livestock produced per man-equivalent (ME), experience of yield loss in the previous year, farmers’ perception about the fertility status of their crop fields, access to credit, distance to market, farm-to-farmer extension, location of the respondent, cropland per ME, and access to off-farm income. Empirical results from a zero-truncated negative binomial regression model also indicate that the number of coping strategies adopted increases with the value of farm implements, access to radio, farmer-to-farmer extension and being located in the regional capital. It however decreases with the age of the household head, number of family members abroad, a positive perception about the fertility status of crop fields, access to government extension services, distance to market, and access to off-farm income. Limited access to credit, radio, and markets renders farmers more vulnerable and pushes them to adopt more costly coping strategies. In addition, an increase in income earned from secondary livestock products decreases incentive for farmers to adopt liquidation of productive assets as coping strategy after a harvest failure. Policy makers and stakeholders could make smallholder farmers less vulnerable to harvest failure by enhancing their access to radio, credit, off-farm income and market, promotion of farmer-to-farmer extension, implementing measure to improve the fertility of crop fields in the study area, and enhancing farmers’ engagement in the production and selling of secondary livestock products Public Library of Science 2023-04-14 /pmc/articles/PMC10104303/ /pubmed/37058444 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0284328 Text en © 2023 Boansi et al https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Boansi, David
Owusu, Victor
Tham-Agyekum, Enoch Kwame
Wongnaa, Camillus Abawiera
Frimpong, Joyceline Adom
Bukari, Kaderi Noagah
Responding to harvest failure: Understanding farmers coping strategies in the semi-arid Northern Ghana
title Responding to harvest failure: Understanding farmers coping strategies in the semi-arid Northern Ghana
title_full Responding to harvest failure: Understanding farmers coping strategies in the semi-arid Northern Ghana
title_fullStr Responding to harvest failure: Understanding farmers coping strategies in the semi-arid Northern Ghana
title_full_unstemmed Responding to harvest failure: Understanding farmers coping strategies in the semi-arid Northern Ghana
title_short Responding to harvest failure: Understanding farmers coping strategies in the semi-arid Northern Ghana
title_sort responding to harvest failure: understanding farmers coping strategies in the semi-arid northern ghana
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10104303/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37058444
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0284328
work_keys_str_mv AT boansidavid respondingtoharvestfailureunderstandingfarmerscopingstrategiesinthesemiaridnorthernghana
AT owusuvictor respondingtoharvestfailureunderstandingfarmerscopingstrategiesinthesemiaridnorthernghana
AT thamagyekumenochkwame respondingtoharvestfailureunderstandingfarmerscopingstrategiesinthesemiaridnorthernghana
AT wongnaacamillusabawiera respondingtoharvestfailureunderstandingfarmerscopingstrategiesinthesemiaridnorthernghana
AT frimpongjoycelineadom respondingtoharvestfailureunderstandingfarmerscopingstrategiesinthesemiaridnorthernghana
AT bukarikaderinoagah respondingtoharvestfailureunderstandingfarmerscopingstrategiesinthesemiaridnorthernghana