Agricultural Innovation and Resource Management in Ghana

Christopher Udry, Yale University.

The objective of the study is to formally model the incentives individuals face with respect to experimentation with and adoption of new agricultural technologies to cope with ecological stress. The farming system in the study area of Eastern Ghana is undergoing transformation from an established system of intercropped maize and cassava to intensive vegetable/fruit production, including a new export pineapple sector. The major challenge is to find soil fertility maintenance techniques under the new cropping system.

The three key economic issues are:

• innovations are characterized by social learning, farmers learn from each others experimentation and thus externalities exist.
• there is a close relationship between property rights, at the household and individual levels, and incentives to apply soil fertility maintenance techniques.
• decision-making with respect to soil fertility maintenance is critically dependent on characteristics of the available capital markets.

A key aspect of the research will be a reconceptualization of gender and household organization. While much recent work has retreated from the assumption of the unitary model of a household to an assumption of household production efficiency, evidence from other studies in West Africa indicates that even the latter assumption may be erroneous. This indicates that the incentives for agricultural innovation and the ability to maintain soil fertility may be very different for men and women.

The program of research comprises three simultaneous and interactive components:

• detailed observation and informal interviews to develop a descriptive characterization of the particular institutions in the study communities which affect individual incentives with respect to innovation and soil fertility maintenance decisions.
• theoretical work which formalizes the description and draws out testable implications.
• multi round survey (monthly for 12 months) to collect the data required for econometric analysis of the testable implications.

Within each component attention will be paid to the gender differentials that exist in resource access, rights and responsibilities.