Beyond adoption: the welfare effects of farmer innovation in rural Ghana

Justice Tambo and Tobias Wunscher

No 211682, 2015 Conference, August 9-14, 2015, Milan, Italy from International Association of Agricultural Economists

Abstract: With numerous challenges hindering smallholders’ adoption of externally developed technologies, it is often argued that farmer innovation can play an essential role in rural livelihoods. Yet a rigorous assessment of the impact of farmer innovation is lacking. We address this issue by analyzing the effect of farmer innovation on household welfare, measured by income, consumption expenditure, and food security. Using household survey data from northern Ghana and applying endogenous switching regression, we find that farmer innovation significantly increases household income and consumption expenditure, and reduces food insecurity. However, we find that the positive productivity and income effects of farmer innovation do not significantly translate into nutritious diet, measured by household dietary diversity. Overall, our results show positive and significant welfare effects of farmer innovation, hence, support increasing arguments on the need to promote farmer innovation as a complement to externally promoted technologies in food security and poverty reduction efforts.

Keywords: Farm Management; International Development (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 30
Date: 2015
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-agr, nep-dev and nep-ino
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ags:iaae15:211682

DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.211682

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