Agricultural production in Ghana is mainly carried out by smallholder farmers on a subsistence basis. Smallholders constitute about 95% of the farming population and produce 80% of the annual output. This study investigates the level of technical efficiency of a sample of 294 households from the Upper East region of Ghana. Technical efficiency and its determinants are investigated using parametric stochastic frontiers and nonparametric data envelopment analysis methods. This is the first study that uses bootstrap DEA and Bayesian frontier methods in efficiency analysis of agriculture in Ghana. Results from our analysis show that mean technical efficiency is low and there is significant variability in efficiency among the sample farms. There is significant positive correlation of efficiency estimates from nonparametric and parametric models which indicates the robustness of the results. The results imply that agricultural productivity can be increased substantially through improvement in technical efficiency. From a policy perspective, age (as a proxy for farming experience), educational status, use of hired labour and farm size, have been found to hold the greatest potential for improving technical efficiency in Ghanaian agriculture. Policy implications from the analysis of the determinants of technical efficiency are sensitive to the methods used to estimate technical efficiency.

The purpose of this guide is to provide a better understanding of the concept and practice of entrepreneurship. This guide has been prepared for people who want to start a farm business for the first time and for farmers that want to make changes to their farming systems by introducing high value enterprises directed to the market. This guide can also help extension workers be better able to help farmers develop the skills and spirit of an entrepreneur. It is part of a series of booklets on farm business management designed to help extension workers support farmers.

Provides a comprehensive analysis of stochastic dominance through coverage of concepts, methods of estimation, inferential tools, and applications.

Maize is an important food crop in Ghana, accounting for more than 50 percent of the country’s total cereal production. The Ghana Grains Development Project (1979–1997) and the Food Crops Development Project (2000–2008) made major investments to improve maize yield. Despite these efforts, the average maize yield in Ghana remains one of the lowest in the world, much lower than the average for Africa south of the Sahara.

It is widely agreed that reducing poverty in Africa south of the Sahara (SSA) depends largely on stimulating growth in agriculture. To this end, heads of state in Africa rallied to form the pan-African Comprehensive African Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) with the goal of raising investments and improving strategy implementation. However, while implementing an agricultural agenda under the CAADP framework, more and more countries have realized that increasing public investment in agriculture alone is not enough. Policy can play an important role not only to make public investment more efficient, but also is crucial for incentivizing private sector and farmer investment in agriculture. Against this backdrop this paper takes stock of current agricultural policies in SSA with a view to identifying policies that are working as well as areas for improvement. The paper examines policies to encourage the adoption of agricultural inputs, initiate greater private-sector investment in agriculture and agro-industries, and manage price volatility while encouraging openness. The paper further reviews successful land tenure policies and property rights systems, reviews the evidence on the synergies between agriculture and nutrition, and examines how CAADP is laying the institutional architecture for improved policy formulation in Africa. In general, the paper finds that although substantial progress has been made, there is considerable scope for improvement. This is not surprising given the relatively primitive and deeply rooted nature of smallholder farming in Africa. Evidence synthesized in the paper supports the view that most policies cannot be implemented in isolation. Rather, policies tend to be most effective when implemented along with complementary policies and public investments.

Published in 1997, this text is set in a context where Ghana has experienced improvements in aggregate output performance over the past decade (1986-1996) yet agriculture's performance remains sub-optimal. The author focuses on agriculture's fragmentation as attributable to space (storage, transportation and marketing), form (rudimentary production methods in general) and content (stagnent productivity and poor organization of production) and notes that whilst current policies have impinged on the space fragmentation, issues on form and content seem to have been left to the dictates of the market. The author calls for a strategy of government plan in promoting modern technology in agriculture to enhance its linkage to industry for rapid and sustainable economic growth.