A study conducted by principal technologists and research scientists has shown that technology is an essential factor if the agriculture sector is to develop.
The study on the ‘Impact of Technology Adoption: Evidence from Maize and Cowpea Farmers in Northern Ghana’ recommended that for this to be a reality, it would require stakeholders in the agriculture sector to provide credit and input support to farmers.
Principal Technologist at the Science and Technology Policy Research Institute of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR-STEPRI), Mr. Emmanuel Jumpah, presented the findings at a validation workshop in Accra on August 11, 2020.
He emphasized the importance of adopting technology in achieving sustained food productivity, ensuring improved food security and raising farmers income.
According to him, agricultural extension remains pivotal in improving farm productivity.
“Expanding easy access to extension services and monitoring of farmers production activities by agric extension agents are highly recommended.”
Africa RISING
The study emanates from the Africa Research in Sustainable Intensification for the Next Generation (Africa RISING), a project designed to generate and disseminate technologies for smallholder farmers to adopt and adapt to improve their livelihoods.
It is being implemented with several collaborators (farmers, researchers, policy institutions among others) in West Africa (Ghana and Mali), East Africa (Ethiopia and Tanzania) and Southern Africa (Malawi and Zambia).
In Ghana, the project targets smallholder farmers in the northern part of the country engaged in crop (maize and cowpea) and livestock (small ruminants) production.
Technologies generated in these areas are distributed to farmers through ‘technology parks’, a concept by Africa RISING.
CSIR-STEPRI research component
This finding is one of the outcomes from the collaboration of CSIR-STEPRI and Africa RISING since 2017. The collaboration between these two institutes is based on the analysis of policies that impact smallholder farmers.
A Research Scientist, Dr Adams Abdulai, gave an overview of the study saying, the current research work involved monitoring group dynamics among users of small-scale maize shelling machines in northern Ghana.
He disclosed that more is to be done as CSIR-STEPRI would also conduct simulation and other socio-economic analyses of selected sustainable technologies/practices for different farmer settings to have a better understanding of the adoption potential of these proven technologies and opportunities for scaling up.
“The next steps are to undertake gender analysis in relation to technology adoption to inform policy, create awareness of the community, district and regional levels on the research findings for scale up by actors and other stakeholders.”
Dr Abdulai further stated that prominence of the Africa RISING intervention would be increased through policy engagements and the use of available platforms to circulate research findings based on the SI framework.
Analysis of SI tech
A Principal Technologist at the CSIR-STEPRI, Nana Yamoah Asafu-Adjaye, said a simulation analysis of SI technology adoption was conducted with an objective to assess the economic impact (poverty rate, farm income effects, per capita income and adoption rates).
According to him, the results on the ‘maize-cowpea living mulch technology’ showed that adoption rates varied with the introduction of cowpea in maize cultivation.
“Cowpea living mulch planted one week after maize is GH¢6227.81, same planted two weeks after maize is GH¢6180.85 and cowpea planted same day with maize is GH¢5646.57…the effect of different growth levels of cowpea living mulch and level of maize maturity have demonstrated that planting maize with cowpea as living mulch at one week after planting maize would be of most benefit to farmers.”
